A Patch of Clover
by altenprano
Summary: When Branson's cousin arrives at Downton one afternoon in February of 1916, the chauffeur finds that she is no longer the little girl he remembered growing up with, but that doesn't change the loyalty they have to each other. OC, starts before S2.
1. Arrival

**A/N: So this is one of my attempts at an OC in the _Downton Abbey _verse, so I hope you enjoy this piece. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey,_ and any Irish Gaelic that appears in this fic is the product of Google Translate. And I'll address other minutia as we get to chapters where it's important. **

***"my little love," a term of endearment **

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><p><em>February, 1916<em>

It was cold enough outside that Tom could see his breath as he strode away from the train platform, determined to get away before the platform became crowded with departures and arrivals once more. He'd never been fond of the clamor of train stations, nor was he overly fond of the sudden drop in temperature, and he hated to leave the car unattended for too long.

He knew he didn't need to rush his journey back to Downton, but he would rather spend the remainder of his day in the garage than out in this cold, and thus his strides became quick and deliberate, almost soldier-like. His attention was fixed above the crowd, towards where he had parked the car, and the people who milled past him adjusted their course to avoid colliding with him.

Well, all but one.

"Pardon me, sir," the young woman said, her hand flying to catch the brim of her straw traveling hat before his shoulder could send it flying. "I wasn't watching my step."

"No worries, miss," he said, catching her gently by her elbow to help steady her. "Neither was I."

She let out a small laugh, and Tom could hear something like uncertainty in the sound, as if the young woman were laughing to cover up some insecurity.

"Is everything alright?" he asked, furrowing his brows in confusion at her laughter.

"You wouldn't happen to know the way to Downton Abbey, would you?" she asked, speaking with a lilt that Tom recognized, though he could tell she was speaking around it, trying to minimize it as best she could.

He nodded. "It so happens that I'm headed that way m'self," he told her. Realizing that he hadn't introduced himself properly, he added: "I'm Tom, by the way. Tom Branson."

The young woman's eyes lit up with recognition, but, as if she'd caught herself in the act, she glanced away until her expression settled into one of calm neutrality. "Tom?" she said, the joy in her voice unmistakable.

That was when something inside Tom clicked into place, and he realized that he knew her.

"Mairead!" he exclaimed, perhaps a bit louder than he intended to, but the sight of his cousin was enough reason for his sudden excitement. "Dear Lord, Mairead, it's been ages! You've grown since we last saw each other- quite a bit. You're...nineteen years old now?"

"Almost sixteen," she corrected, color rising in her cheeks. "But close enough, yeah?"

He shrugged and led her to the car, shocked by his unexpected reunion with his young cousin to the point that he completely forgot to offer her help with loading her valise into the boot of the car. "I suppose," he said, helping her in beside him up front. "How's your family? Sam? Will? Lisabeth?"

"Sam's married now- about a year and a half, to Isibéal O'Donovan. You remember her, right?"

Tom grinned. "How could I forget her? Sam had his heart set on her the day he saw her coming from Mass. I'm glad he finally married her."

"Will's head groom for a family in Manchester, the same one Mam's been working for since you were born, or even before. Lisabeth's eight now, and living with Aunt Bridget, like the rest of us did. Da's helping Aunt Bridget on her husband's farm," she continued. "How've you been keeping?"

"Alright, I suppose," he said, deciding against bringing up Lady Sybil, at least for now. "So what brings you to Downton? Last I heard, you were working in Manchester with your mam."

Mairead's lips settled into a tight line- she was thinking, Tom realized, recognizing the expression as one he'd often seen on her brother Sam's face- and it was a while before she spoke: "It just wasn't working for me, I suppose," she said. "Mam suggested that I apply for the empty post they had here, see how that worked out."

There was something more to it, Tom could tell by the startled spark he saw in his cousin's eyes, as well as the rehearsed feel of her words. Still, he didn't press the issue. "You'll do brilliantly, I'm sure _a stóirín*_," he assured her. "Everyone's kind, well, as kind as you'd expect, given the circumstances."

He half-expected her to cock her head to the side and ask "What circumstances?" like she might have done when she was younger, listening to Tom and Sam discuss politics over luncheon after Mass, as they often did, before Tom took the job of Lord Grantham's chauffeur, but she didn't. She only gave him a brisk nod- She's old enough to understand what you mean, Tom, he chided himself. And it was good that she understood, that what he'd explained to her when she was ten or twelve years old made sense to her now, perhaps because she'd experienced the world as a young Irishwoman, and, if her speech was as free as it'd been when she was younger, she'd probably struck out and been labeled just as radical as Mr. Carson and some of the other staff members at Downton thought him to be.

He'd have to keep an eye on her, to make sure she didn't land herself in trouble. If she'd grown up to be as politically-interested as Sam joked she would be, Tom could only pray that she knew well enough to keep her mouth shut, and he would make sure she didn't fall in with the likes of Thomas and O'Brien. Surely there was nothing worse that could happen than that, was there?

"May I present to you Downton Abbey, home of the Lord and Lady Grantham," he said, somewhat dramatically, as they pulled up the drive. "Do you need help with your valise?"

She shook her head, dislodging a dark auburn curl from its hairpin. "No thank you, Tom," she said, stifling a laugh at her cousin's dramatics. "I can get it myself, don't worry."

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><p><strong>AN: So I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of _A Patch of Clover, _and reviews are certainly most welcome. I really look forward to exploring the relationship between Tom and Mairead, especially in relation to everything that goes on from S2 and all the way up to S5 and beyond. Other characters will feature later (to name a few: Thomas Barrow and Mrs. Hughes), so we've got that to look forward to, yeah? **

**Thank you so much for reading, and please feel free to leave a review, it means the world, especially with an OC. **

**Thank you~ **


	2. Introductions

**A/N: So here's chapter two~ **

**We haven't hit the actual plot of the show yet, but we will, very soon. I promise. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own _Downton Abbey. _**

**Enjoy!**

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><p>Mairead knew what to expect when she came to Downton, at least as far as the change in prestige (which, oddly enough, did not deter her as her mam thought it would) and scenery went. What she hadn't expected was to see Tom shortly upon her arrival at the train station, and she couldn't help but wonder why her mam didn't mention that Mairead's cousin was employed by the same family that had just hired her.<p>

_Then again,_ Mairead had thought as she'd been unpacking her things (it wasn't much, just what she'd thought was practical to wear, plus three books, and the small jewelry box she used to keep her letters in), _that's one of the reasons you left._

She recalled what she'd told Mrs. Hughes when she'd come to be interviewed for the post, about how she wished to avoid any bias that would undoubtedly come from being the daughter of the housekeeper, which was more than reasonable, wasn't it? She wanted to be successful on her own terms, not just because her mother could promote her if she wanted. Other girls would jump at such a chance, this she knew, and sometimes she wondered what kept her from taking advantage of that, why she held back whenever a chance to show off in front of her mother arose. Such chances were rare, seeing as her mother was more focused on keeping the staff in order than spoiling her children who worked in her household.

"Stop that," she chided herself as she changed into her new uniform and redid her dark auburn hair into an even more simple knot than she'd worn for the train ride from Manchester, having to rush it when she heard a light knock on the door. The day may be nearly over, but there's still work to be done, she reminded herself as she went to answer the door.

"Hullo Mairead," the woman outside her door said, offering Mairead a warm smile. She wore the same uniform as Mairead, with her fair hair swept back into a neat knot at the nape of her neck. "Mrs. Hughes sent me to make sure you're settled in properly."

"Yes I am, thank you," Mairead said, returning the woman's smile. She had a faint memory of meeting the woman when she'd come for her interview earlier in the year, but that memory didn't include her name.

"Splendid. I'm Anna, and if you'd like, I can introduce you to some of the others," she offered, gesturing for Mairead to follow her down the hall where the female staff slept until they came to a room similar to Mairead's own, where three other women were gathered.

The oldest looked to be somewhere in her twenties- maybe a year or two younger than Mairead's brother William- but the other two were closer to eighteen or nineteen years old. All three of them wore a housemaid's uniform, but Mairead knew enough to know that they were only a small portion of the housemaid population here. A great house such as Downton surely had at least twenty housemaids, and there were maybe half that many footmen. She knew she could be wrong, with men leaving to fight on the Western Front, and women taking more jobs in the city. Back in Manchester, there'd been two or three of her fellow parlor maids who'd left to be secretaries or something like that, and the Lord knew that a good bit of the footmen she'd worked alongside had left to fight.

"Ethel, Lucy, Alice, this is Mairead," Anna said, then, gesturing to each of the women as she said their names, she added: "Mairead, this is Ethel, Lucy, and Alice."

"Pleasure to meet you," Mairead said, giving each of them a polite nod. "You can call me Meg, if it's easier."

Anna smiled and clapped her hands together softly- a gesture of finality that Mairead's mother had often performed. "I'll leave you four to get acquainted, I suppose," she said. "Don't take too long, though." And with that she left.

"She acts like a proper lady!" Lucy scoffed as soon as Anna was gone, addressing no one in particular.

Mairead said nothing, she just hung back, observing as Alice elbowed Lucy in the ribs gently, though certainly not playfully.

"She's being polite," the dark-haired housemaid retorted, her expression softening as she met Mairead's eyes. "Don't mind Lucy. She's a bit sore that you get to be third housemaid, when she's been working here for a year."

"Am not," Lucy muttered, rubbing her side and shooting Alice a venomous look.

Ethel watched the two younger girls, her thin lips pressed together thoughtfully as her attention shifted to Mairead. "Where are you from?" she asked.

It was a reasonable enough question, and Mairead didn't see any reason not to answer. "Just outside of Dublin," she told her new colleagues, bracing herself for whatever might follow.

"Isn't that where the chauffeur's from?" Ethel asked Alice and Lucy.

"He's from Bray, which isn't far from where I grew up," Mairead corrected, heat rising in her cheeks as she spoke.

A sly grin spread across Lucy's lips. "How do y'know that? I don't imagine he'd tell you- he's quiet, keeps to himself, y'know."

She felt her cheeks warm with embarrassment (oh, what a fool she must've looked like to them!), and she scolded herself for being so foolish as to blurt out something like that. "He's a dear friend of my family," she lied, using the quickest excuse she could think of for her familiarity with "the chauffeur," one that would explain their relationship without being too problematic.

"Just a friend?" Ethel arched a red brow playfully, but the humor behind the expression- the Lord knew that Mairead had done much the same in jest herself- did not have the effect it was meant to have.

If anything, it only served to make Mairead bristle, but it wouldn't be any use to her if she made a poor impression on her first day, now would it? While it was appealing, the notion of making friends with Ethel, Alice, and Lucy was really a silly one, especially if all they seemed to be interested in were things that weren't any of their business. It was cruel to judge them so quickly, so Mairead decided she would wait and see what their true dispositions were (her mother had always told her that you had to wait until you'd seen them with other people, seen them work, and seen them in a spot of trouble before you could truly identify their character, and Mairead was ready to take this advice), then she would make her decision.

Until then, she'd keep to herself, like she usually did, but she'd keep her eyes and ears open, for sure, at least until she had a good sense of things here. She'd stick with her lie about Tom, and she'd have to tell him what she'd told the staff, about their families being good friends, so he would know what to say if anyone happened to ask him.

"I should prob'ly report to Mrs. Hughes," she said, giving the other housemaids a tight-lipped smile. "Let her know I'm settled in and all."

"Do you need me t'show you where her sitting room is?" Alice offered.

Mairead shook her head, maintaining her smile. "I remember where it is, but thanks," she said, leaving before anyone could say something to her. As she went, she could hear them whispering excitedly - _Gossiping_, she thought- but she couldn't make out what they were saying.

_Thank the Lord for books and work_, she thought, smiling in earnest to herself. Without them, she was convinced she might go mad.

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><p><strong>AN: So there's chapter two! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to ****actually getting to the plot of the show (as I said, soon, very soon). As always, reviews are welcome. **

**Thank you for your continued support!**


	3. The First Night

**A/N: So here's chapter three. We're getting closer and closer to the actual plot of the show (Chapter Five is set at the beginning of S2)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey, _nor do I pretend to be an expert on European/Irish History. I do the best I can, I promise, so know that I am trying :) **

**Enjoy~**

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><p>In the evenings, Tom was usually able to find some time for himself, assuming the Crawley family didn't have anywhere to be that evening, which, thankfully, tonight, they didn't. He usually spent this time reading ( at the moment, he was taking a break from political literature and was reading a collection of short stories by Caradoc Evans), or tinkering with the car if he was feeling too restless to sit and read. Tonight, however, he didn't feel inclined to do either, seeing as his thoughts kept wandering back to earlier that evening- late afternoon was more like it, really- when his cousin had arrived.<p>

Instead of reading or tinkering- it didn't seem as if he would become any less restless as the evening wore on- the chauffeur sat down to write a letter to Mairead's mother, assuring the woman that her daughter had arrived at the Abbey safely, and that he would keep an eye on her as best he could. It was one of a few letters he'd written to anyone outside of his brother and Mairead's brother, Sam, but he had a feeling that his aunt might feel more at ease with her daughter's new post if she knew the girl wasn't all on her own at Downton.

As he finished the letter, he realized that he didn't know his aunt's current address, aside from the fact that it was in Manchester. He knew Mairead would know, and if there was ever a better time to ask her for it, it was probably now. A trip to the servants' hall wouldn't do any harm, not at this hour, when the only people who were likely to be awake would be those who he didn't pay much mind to in the first place.

He found Mairead sitting in the servants' hall, her full attention on a hat he recognized as one of Lady Sybil's favorites. She was alone except for Anna, who sat doing her own mending in her usual seat, a scene Tom found surprising, as the footmen and hall boys would usually have a card game going at this hour.

"Good evening," he said, unable to hide a grin when his cousin jumped a little, having been so engrossed in her work that she hadn't heard his footsteps disrupt the silence that seemed to have settled over the two women.

She narrowed her eyes at him as she set the hat down and pressed her index finger to the underside of the table for a moment. "The same to you," she replied, ceasing to glare at him. "What are y'doing up here? Ethel and Lucy said you mostly stay down in the garage."

"Because I do." It wasn't a lie, that he rarely came up to the servants' hall aside from mealtimes, but it made him wonder what else the staff said about him, even though he was well beyond the age where such things should bother him. "And I was wondering if you could give me your mam's address."

"What for?" she asked, her voice carrying a note of impatience.

"So I could write to her, that's why," he answered.

"About what?"

Tom wasn't sure if he should be amused or cross with his cousin for her behavior. She'd done this plenty of times when she was younger, asking him questions after he'd told her something or requested something of her. He knew Sam found it vexing, listening to the then-twelve-year-old girl ask every question under the sun about everything her older brother talked about, and Tom had assumed that perhaps his cousin had grown out of the habit. Still, it was nice (at least Tom thought it was) to see a hint of the young girl that he left in Ireland three years ago, even when the girl was now more of a young woman (he still doubted she was just turning sixteen- she looked much older than that).

"Just to assure her that you're not completely on your own out here," he answered, watching Anna out of the corner of his eye, in case the woman rose to object to his statement, or make a comment about how Mairead wasn't, as he'd put it, "completely on her own."

It was clear that Mairead was watching the head housemaid too, though if it were for the same thing, Tom didn't know. She watched the older woman for a few moments straight on, not out of the corner of her eye, as if she wanted her superior to know that she was being watched, before turning her attention back to Tom.

"I told the others that you're a close family friend," she confided in Gaeilge, dropping her voice to a whisper, which was hardly necessary, as Tom doubted that Anna would understand, nor would she judge them for it.

Anna was a good woman, that was for sure, always offering him nothing but kind words when he ventured up to the house. It wasn't that everyone else was always unkind, but when she spoke, he was never able to find any traces of disapproval or smugness in her voice the way he could when Mr. Molesley or Thomas (before he went to the front) addressed him, and he didn't think of her as one to gossip. Like Tom, she liked to keep to herself, though she was certainly more inclined to talk amiably over meals and mending (which was in part what surprised him about the scene he'd found in the servants' hall, with both women sitting in silence) than he was.

"Why?"

Why would she deny her relation to him in that way? Had she already heard all there was to hear of the downstairs gossip about him, and decided that she wanted no association with him because of it? Surely not, as she'd identified him as being "a close family friend," and not something less intimate, like a neighbor or a friend-of-a-friend, but the chauffeur couldn't help but wonder what had driven her to say that.

Color rose in her cheeks, and she shrugged. "They were being nosey," she told him.

"That's hardly a good reason to lie, Mairead." He sat across from her at the table, so hopefully he appeared less like he was scolding her for what she'd done. If anything, he wanted to know why she'd done it, and he knew he wouldn't get anywhere near the answer if he came at it like he knew Mr. Carson would if he were in the chauffeur's position.

"You're right, it isn't, is it?" she asked, a small, helpless grin flitting across her face.

He shook his head. "No, it isn't," he confirmed. "But I can see how it might've been easy."

There was no way to tell that the two were related as closely as they were from simply looking, and they both carried different surnames, which would make Mairead's lie all the more believable. Had it been Sam telling the lie instead of Mairead, however, he would be caught in the act, he and Tom were so similar that, were it not for Sam's hair (which was the same auburn color as Mairead's, but with a bit more dark red to it, especially in the summer), the two young men could be brothers.

"You're not upset, are you?" his cousin asked, returning to English and keeping her voice at a whisper.

He gave her a brief, stern nod. "No, I'm not," he said, "but that's no excuse to do it, is it?"

She swallowed and shook her head, "No, it's not," she said. "I'm sorry Tom."

"No harm done." He slid her the envelope, and when she looked at it quizzically, traces of apology and guilt still visible in her features, he said, "Can I have your mam's address now?"

Her expression shifted back to the polite eagerness he'd seen on her face earlier that day as she took the envelope and, after retrieving a pencil from her apron pocket, she wrote the address of what he could only assume was her former post on the back of the envelope. "There y'go," she said, stowing the pencil in her apron pocket and passing him the envelope back.

"Thank you," Tom said, rising from his seat and exiting the servants' hall after a polite "good night" to Anna.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for reading! Reviews are welcome, as always, and I look forward to sharing the rest of Tom and Mairead's story with y'all, especially when Sybil comes into the picture a bit more. **

**Thank you~**


	4. April 24, 1916

**A/N: So here's chapter five. Thank you so much for all the support, I'm very grateful. **

**This chapter kind of came to be after I rewatched Episode 6 ( I think) of Season Two, when Tom tells Sybil that he has a cousin who died in the Easter Rising, so I thought I would tie that to Mairead. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey _**

**Disclaimer Part Two: My knowledge of the Easter Rising of 1916 is limited to what I could understand from the Wikipedia article, the quarter of a page dedicated to it in my history textbook, and the five minutes we talked about it in class. You have been forewarned. **

**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>April, 1916<em>

Mairead came down to the garage around luncheon, and Tom heard her before he saw her, the sound of her feet hitting the stone path at a pace that was somewhere between a purposeful walk and a run, the skirt of her uniform rustling when she abruptly slowed herself at the garage entrance.

"Tom," she said, her feet still.

He looked up from the letter he'd received in the post that morning, which he hadn't had a chance to read yet, seeing as his morning had consisted of driving Lady Mary and Her Ladyship to the Dower House, and then seeing that the car was in good condition. There was something in Mairead's voice that made him suspect that something had happened, something important. Had Will or Sam been called up by the war office to serve? That had to be the case, seeing how little ruffled his cousin- she was so much like her mother in that regard.

He went to greet her, disregarding the fact that he wasn't in uniform (she wasn't one of the family, nor was she Mr. Carson or Mrs. Hughes, so he suspected it would have been alright, even if they weren't family). "Yes?"

She met his gaze before diving straight at him and wrapping her arms around his torso. "They killed him, Tom, they jus' shot him there," she said, her voice coming out in a fearful whisper.

He stumbled backwards, caught off-guard by the embrace he now found himself in. "Who?" he asked, smoothing her hair and doing his best to comfort her, despite the confusion that her declaration had brought upon him.

"Sam," she said, the grief in her voice more apparent now, and he could hear notes of anger and fear when she spoke. She was holding back tears- he could hear it when she spoke too- and her body trembled against his, as if she were a child woken from a horrible nightmare.

_But this isn't a nightmare,_ Tom thought, pressing his lips to the top of her head, doing everything he knew how to calm her. She wouldn't have come all the way down to the garage unless she truly needed him, especially not with it threatening to rain like it was. There would be time for him to grieve later; Sam had been his cousin, as well as his closest friend, but Tom had lost a cousin and friend, and Mairead had lost one of her brothers.

"Aunt Bridget sent...she sent a telegram, saying he'd been shot." She tilted her head upwards, and Tom could see tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. Her jaw was clenched tight, as if that would keep her from crying, and it did nothing to keep her lips from trembling.

He could feel tears welling in his own eyes, and he blinked furiously in an attempt to dispel them. "Who shot him?" he asked her gently, his stomach tightening when he realized that he knew who'd done it.

"An English officer," she answered, finally losing the battle against the tears that now ran down her cheeks. "He wasn't doing anything but heading to meet Isibéal at her mam's, like he's done the morning after every holiday since she had Daniel."

Tom remembered hearing about Daniel- he heard about Sam's son in almost every letter- and he recalled receiving a letter talking about how Isibéal was pregnant again. That had been two months ago, and Sam had written that she was just beginning to show, and how thrilled he was at the thought of being a father again. He'd wanted a girl this time- _"I think I'd name her Meave, though I know Isibéal will want to name her something less, as she'd say, "poetic," I suppose,"_ he'd written in his most recent letter, the one that Tom had been reading before Mairead had come to him- but now he'd never know. And his poor wife! Tom could barely imagine how she must have received the news of her young husband's death. The thought of Isibéal, the girl Sam had chased after for the better part of his youth, who was easily one of the most lovely girls in all of Dublin (Tom remembered having asked Sam as a joke how many poems were written about her), as a widow saddened him, even more so when he was reminded of her year-old son and the one she was expecting.

"I'm sure he wasn't," he assured her. He knew about the tensions between his country and England, and he'd read what Sam had written about those tensions growing at an alarming rate since England declared war on Germany. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened, he'd mused one evening, and now it was, and he wasn't sure if he'd wanted it or not. He'd learned from history books, that the kind of change men like him and Sam wanted for their countries was hard to achieve without bloodshed, but now part of him wished there was a way.

"They murdered him, Tom," she cried hoarsely, trying to keep control of her voice, trying to hide her distress under anger. "They shot him like...like...a dog!"

"Hush _a stóirín_." He pulled her close to him, letting her cry into his shirt. He cradled her close, as if she were a child, and to him she still was, even if she was only six inches shorter than him now, and in every way a young woman. He understood her anger, but he remained silent, only speaking to soothe her.

He didn't ask if there would be a funeral, for he knew if a man had just been shot without reason, there was sure to be nothing but chaos rocking Dublin right now, and the Lord knew when that would calm down. And even if everything was calm (or as calm as it could be), he doubted he would allow Mairead to go. He may not have been her parent, but, as her older cousin, he refused to think of letting her go by herself (he knew her mother would remain in Manchester, on account of her post as housekeeper, and she was likely to keep Will with her), even if she was more than capable of managing on her own.

"I'll tell Mrs. Hughes that you just needed some air," he told her, sensing that she was likely to want this to stay between the two of them. He knew it was what he'd want, and he had a feeling Mrs. Hughes would understand what had transpired, even if he didn't tell her, but she at least was respectful of what others chose to keep to themselves.

"T-thank you, Tom," his cousin said, her voice more even than when she'd last spoken, though he could hear the rawness in her voice. "Apologize for me, yeah?"

Tom kissed her forehead. "Don't worry, I will," he promised. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay? I'm sure Mrs. Hughes won't miss you for a while longer."

She gave her head a tight shake. "Go," she said, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "I...I'll be fine, and Mrs. Hughes is pro'ly better of knowing that I might be a while...But let her know I'll be back soon. I just...I just need time to collect m'self, that's all."

"If you insist," he said, releasing her. "I won't be long, promise."

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. **

**Tom always struck me as the "big brother of a cousin" that pops up often, and so I played with that a little (and I will continue to play with it a little later on, I think). As for Mairead...well, tell me what you think? Reviews make my day, that's for sure. **

**Thank you for reading~**


	5. Lady Sybil

**A/N: So here's chapter five, alternatively titled "The Chapter in Which We Actually Meet the Series Plotline." **

**I do employ a little artistic lisence, in that I'm using events from S2EP1, which takes place (according to the Downton Wiki) in November of 1916, but I decided December (for whatever reason). You'll see later that some timeline stuff is a little skewed, but I'm sure that's not going to be too much of an issue. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey_**

**Disclaimer Pt. 2: (I neglected to mention this in Chapter Two) Lucy the housemaid is credited to one of my tumblr anons, so she's not mine. I'm borrowing her for now. **

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><p><em>December 1916<em>

"Her Ladyship rang for tea in the study," Mairead said, the request coming from her lips just as she took the elegantly-carved wooden tray that she knew was the Countess's favorite from its place in the cupboard and gently set it on the long table in the kitchen.

In the past eleven months, she'd picked up on the fine details that made up the family she served, as well as those who served them. It was one of the advantages of being a housemaid- she was completely invisible upstairs, and mostly invisible downstairs (though nowhere near as invisible as a scullery maid, nor was she half-there like the hall boys)- and she reveled in each new discovery about them, as a child revels in learning her sums or how to read. Having worked as a parlor maid, she knew that people would say what they pleased around her, because she was just part of the scenery, just like the drapes and potted plants and cushions, and it wasn't as if she was in a position to blackmail her employers.

Of course, she didn't want to cause trouble to take advantage of her new employers, but it made her chest swell with pride when she remembered little details about their preferences when it came to things such as tea , linens, how much light they liked in each room, or even who liked what kinds of flower arrangements. It was, after all, a maid's job to remember the things that pleased those they served, was it not? And Mrs. Hughes could hardly chastise her for eavesdropping when Mairead reported that Her Ladyship had expressed that she preferred an arrangement of orchids to the arrangement of peace lilies that then occupied the drawing room (not to mention, orchids were much easier to maintain, and they didn't make quite as much of a mess as the lilies had).

"Is it time for tea already?" answered the kitchen maid.

Her attention still fixed on readying the tray for Her Ladyship, Mairead nodded. "Indeed," she said. After a few seconds (she had the unfortunate habit of being impatient when these things, and, seeing as she didn't dare do the kitchen maids' work, lest Mrs. Patmore catch her at it, she couldn't do anything but wait), she added: "Hurry up now. You know Her Ladyship doesn't like to be kept waiting, and she seemed especially hurried- something about Mr. Matthew being back."

"Matthew's back?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?" She glanced up, wondering if she'd been talking to the new scullery maid- Daisy would've had tea boiling by now, and she wouldn't be questioning Mairead like this- the entire time. It had to be someone new to staff, since Mairead hardly recognized the voice as belonging to someone she knew from her time here, and the kitchen maids rarely asked this many questions.

If it was possible to blush and have all the color drain from your face at the same time, it surely would've happened to Mairead then.

"L-lady Sybil," she said, her hands falling to her sides as she registered the young woman's presence downstairs. "Forgive me. I didn't realize you would be down here this afternoon."

The youngest of the Crawley sisters bit her lip, trying to keep the corners of her mouth from curling into an amused grin. "It's quite alright," she said, a breathless laugh escaping her lips. "I don't believe we've met."

"Mairead, m'lady. Mairead Hayes."

_Don't expect her to remember your name,_ Mairead was quick to tell herself. _Housemaids come and go- there's probably been at least twenty others before you, not to mention the ones you work with now, who've been here since she was born. She can't possibly care that much._

"If it's easier, "Meg" works just fine."

The only people who called her "Mairead" here (if they called her anything) were Mr. Carson, Mrs. Hughes, and Tom. The rest of the staff called her by "Meg," which was much simpler, and less noticeably Irish than her given name, which she supposed made some people a lot more comfortable than usual. Mrs. O'Brien, Her Ladyship's lady's maid, addressed her (with blatant dislike) as "Miss Hayes," as if she were a schoolmistress who had caught the young maid getting into trouble and was preparing to list her misdeeds before delivering her punishment.

"It's lovely to meet you, Mairead," Sybil said, giving the maid a polite nod, the kind exchanged between members of the same (usually upper) class. "How is it that I haven't seen you before?"

_Because maids aren't supposed to be seen nor are they to be heard by the family._

"I arrived only in February, m'lady, and since then, well, I think I can safely say everyone's been all over the place, with the war and all," she said, remembering that Daisy was on her half-day, and Mrs. Patmore was shopping for tonight's dinner in York, which left the kitchen staff to their own devices. "Not to mention, Downton's size hardly allows for such meetings."

She, of course, had seen all of the great house's inhabitants, from the commanding, elderly woman she'd been told was the Dowager Countess, to Isis ("the fourth Crawley sister," as described to her by Alice when the two had been tasked with washing the Labrador after she'd found her way into the duckpond), but, with the exception of Isis, Mairead only knew them from what little time they spent in the same room, during which she never spoke unless she was accepting orders or asking if there was anything else they required. She knew Lady Mary was the eldest of the Crawley sisters, with dark hair like Her Ladyship and the handsome features of Lord Grantham, and Mairead remembered that she liked to play the piano in the drawing room when there was little else to do (though how, in a house such as this, such a thing was possible, to have "little else to do," Mairead sometimes wondered). Next came Lady Edith, who liked pale orange roses and fashion magazines, and who looked like neither of her parents. Mairead recalled Tom telling her that Lady Edith had asked him to teach her to drive, "to help with the war effort," he'd explained, and how her cousin was still awaiting His Lordship's permission to do so.

What Mairead knew of Lady Sybil was from a combination of things she'd observed, and things she'd heard from her cousin, who harbored a great admiration for Sybil (she would go so far as to say his admiration for the young woman was actually affection). It wasn't hard to see why Tom admired her- she was more soft-spoken than the rest of her family, with a heart that seemed to have a place for everyone, regardless of whether they were titled or not- and Mairead didn't see any reason to dislike her either.

"It doesn't, does it?"

"I suppose not, m'lady," Mairead said, setting a kettle to boil and pulling out the tea that was typically served to the family in the afternoon, making a note to tell Mrs. Hughes that they were running low at the moment. "I hardly know everyone in the staff."

Surely this wouldn't be hard to believe, though Mairead doubted that Lady Sybil knew anyone besides the senior staff, and the footman and maids, the downstairs was so large. She knew the members of the senior staff, the footman, William Mason, her fellow housemaids Ethel, Alice, and Lucy, the kitchen maid, Daisy, and, of course, Tom (shame on her if she didn't know her cousin).

"Surely you know Tom, don't you? Tom Branson?"

The way her lips curled into the beginnings of a blissful smile when she spoke Tom's name, it set Mairead on edge. Was Lady Sybil in love with her cousin? Surely not! The Crawley sisters were all very smart, and hopefully the youngest of their number was smart enough to know that such things were impossible. A chauffeur and the youngest daughter of an earl? The union was doomed, even Mairead saw that, and she knew Tom would see that too. He cherished his job almost as much as folk like His Lordship cherished their precious reputations, if not more (never mind that Tom would be happier as a journalist), and she would hate to see him put that at risk.

"I do m'lady," she answered, maintaining a façade of neutrality. A servant alludes to nothing, no matter how out-of-place, she was forced to remind herself. "He was my brother's best friend growing up."

The lady's dark eyes lit up, and she dug into the pocket of her skirt (Mairead found this interesting, that her skirt had pockets, and she couldn't help but wonder how difficult it would be to obtain a similar garment with her wages), retrieving a folded slip of paper, which she held out to the maid. "Could you deliver this to him for me? I'd do it myself, but if Matthew's back, I might be wanted upstairs."

"Certainly m'lady." Mairead took the paper and set it in her apron pocket, careful not to crease the edges. She'd take a peek at it later, before she did as the lady asked and delivered it, just so she could get a sense of what exactly was going on between her and Tom.

"Splendid. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mairead."

"The pleasure's mine, Lady Sybil." The kettle was beginning to whine, but Mairead let it sit. "Please forgive me for speaking to you like I did."

"As I said: no worries," the lady said. "And I'll tell Mama that tea will be along shortly, so you needn't worry about that."

"That's very kind of you, m'lady. Thank you."

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><p><strong>AN: So that's the end of chapter five. **

**We've finally met Sybil, and the Lord knows how Mairead's going to feel about Tom wanting to marry her. We'll just have to see, I suppose, won't we?**

**Anyways, thank you so much for your support, for your reviews, your readership. It all makes this so much fun, and I'm eternally grateful for y'all.  
>Thank you~<strong>


	6. Glancing Back, and Going Forward

**A/N: So here's chapter six! Yes, we get some Lady Sybil now, which'll spice things up, for sure. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey. _Also, this chapter contains events from S2EP3, but historically is situated around S2EP2 ish**

**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>March 1917 <em>

It'd been a little over a year since his cousin's arrival at Downton, and still, Tom found it hard to believe how much she'd changed.

He knew it was something he ought to expect, that Mairead was no longer the eleven-year-old girl whose auburn head barely came to the middle of his chest, that she wasn't what anyone would consider a "girl" in the first place, and that it was only natural that it happen. People were supposed to grow up- that was how the world worked, after all- and no one could be expected to be the same person in adulthood that they'd been as a child, not even his cousin.

She seemed more contained now, her curiosity and delight in learning held back by a sternness that reminded him of her mother. The deliberate, measured steps that he heard coming down the servants' hall were nothing like the _pitter-patter_ of feet coming towards him across a weathered floor, and Tom had yet to see her smile for longer than a second. From what he'd observed in the moments he spent up at the house, she didn't have any close friends among the staff, and she never said anything on the subject of whatever kind of social life she was able to have downstairs. She didn't seem to have any enemies either, though then again, she mostly kept to herself on the matter.

In the year since her arrival, Mairead had integrated herself into the workings of the household so seamlessly that Tom rarely spoke with her, except for the brief hello if they happened upon each other in the servants' hall, which wasn't frequently, at least not anymore. Their last real conversation had been more of a quarrel than a conversation, and he could still hear her scolding him and calling him reckless, as if he were the younger one in the situation.

"It's foolish, that's what this is," she'd said, her hands planted firmly on her hips as she hovered just outside the garage, unwilling to come in, despite the drizzle that dotted her uniform with dark speckles. "I'd expect you t'know that to them- th'upstairs folk- it's all a lark."

Did she think he needed to be told what risks were involved in loving Lady Sybil? Of course, she didn't understand, since she wasn't the one in love, and he wondered if she ever would, solitary creature that she was. He adored his cousin- that he wouldn't deny- but sometimes he wondered if she would ever find someone who could convince her that marriage was a way of life she might want to pursue. She wouldn't understand how he felt in Lady Sybil's presence, the way his heart raced and pleasant heat flooded his cheeks whenever she made her way down to the garage (he found it embarrassing at times, that he was blushing like a young boy).

Since then, it was almost as if she'd been avoiding him deliberately, to keep herself from being associated with him. It was as if anyone finding out that she was in any way familiar with Tom would somehow put her in a position that made her the subject of her colleagues' dislike. He wondered where she'd learned to do such a thing, and from there, what would have prompted such a behavior? He knew her mam wasn't a woman who wore affection as openly as others, and he remembered how his father would often remark on his sister's thorough nature, and then proceed to criticize the way she'd chosen to bring her children up, which consisted of leaving them with her sister-in-law as soon as possible and visiting on Christmas and Easter.

Mairead came to visit the day he received the letter from the war office, and he'd seen her as she picked her way down to the garage without a light (which would have been unnecessary in that exact moment, when the sky was just beginning to grow dark, but she wouldn't make it back before complete darkness, he was sure of that), holding her skirts just a bit higher than usual, perhaps to avoid the patches of mud that appeared here and there. As she neared the garage, he could see the worried set of her brows and lips, and he wondered how she would've caught wind of the news.

_Sybil must've told her, _he realized as he went to meet his cousin. There was no doubt that news travelled quickly through Downton, and Lady Sybil had told him herself that she considered Mairead to be trustworthy, and he trusted her judgement, even if he had no reason to question his cousin's character.

"I heard you were called up by the war office," she said, hesitating before embracing him, then pulling away. "Please tell me y'won't do anything stupid."

"I can't fight, can I?" he asked, keeping his voice low so it didn't carry up to the house. "I don't care who wins or who-"

"_Tá a fhios agam_*." She apparently had no qualms about raising her voice, even if it was slightly. "Neither do I," she added, her voice dropping to the same level as his.

"Then why are you discouraging me like this?"

He saw her jaw tighten. "I'm warnin' you t'be careful. Don't do anything stupid like Mr. Barrow did, yeah?"

He took her by the shoulders, half-expecting her to shrug him off and step back, as she had the last time the two cousins had been in confrontation with each other. "I won't, I promise," he assured her, amused at her courage in calling Thomas's actions "stupid." His plan was to refuse to serve, not get injured and come home that way.

She smiled, her eyes betraying her bitterness, and let him draw her closer. "I don't want you to go, but it'd be worse t'see you in prison...or shot for cowardice," she confessed.

"Don't worry about me, _a stóirín_**_,_" he said, feeling her body tense at the mention of being shot for cowardice. He'd heard what'd happened to Mrs. Patmore's nephew, but he knew Mairead's mind went straight to her brother, and that was her reason for her temporary fear.

It'd been barely a year since he'd been killed, but what a year it'd been for both him and Mairead. Neither of them had gone for the funeral, in part because of the approaching London season, and also because Dublin had turned into a disaster in the days that followed. She'd borne her grief in such a way that no one noticed the shift in her demeanor, even if they happened to have glimpsed the black ribbon she wound in her hair, or how she now received less mail than before. Tom grieved too, in the way that one did when a cousin died, solemnly and without much fuss. After all, he and Mairead had their jobs to keep, regardless of whether or not they were fond of their employers' country for what it'd done to them.

"Let me know before you leave tomorrow?" She glanced up at him, once more the little girl he knew from years ago, her dark eyes wide and pleading.

"What makes you think-?"

"Tomorrow's your half-day, isn't it?" she asked, inclining her head in question.

He nodded, mystified as to how she knew that. He rarely used his half-days, deciding that it was often better to stay on the estate in case of an emergency. Tinkering with the Renault and reading filled his free hours enough that he was satisfied. "How did you figure that out?"

"I just did," she said, childish flippancy surfacing in her voice for a moment. "I've been working here a year, Tom. Don't expect me t'have learned nothing."

"Your mam would be proud," he told her, planting a kiss on her forehead. "Have you heard from her lately?"

"Aye. She said Lisebeth's gonna come start work in the scullery at the Downings' home." There was a trace of fear in his cousin's voice as she spoke, as if the Downings' residence in Manchester were as treacherous as the trenches were said to be. "I hope she's smart about it."

"And why wouldn't she be? Your mam's a clever woman, and the Downings are kind, at least from what I've heard."

He wasn't as familiar with Lisebeth as he was with his other cousins, among which she was the youngest. He knew she resembled her father's sister Bridget, with fair hair and dark eyes, and that she was two years younger than Mairead. He'd always pictured her as being like Lady Sybil- gentle-hearted, idealistic, optimistic- and perhaps he wasn't too far off.

"It's not them I'm worried about," she said, her mood shifting to a shade darker than it already was, the child gone from her demeanor, replaced by a woman far older than Mairead.

"Then what is it?"

She shook her head and pulled away from him, any traces of the concern that might've driven her down here gone, almost into thin air. "Something else," she said.

"Then tell me, perhaps I can write Alice about it and-"

"No!" She looked startled at her own cry, which was riddled with as much anger as it was fear, and Tom thought for a moment that he saw an angry blush creep up her neck and into her cheeks. "Not now. Another time, perhaps, but not now. Please," she said.

He nodded stiffly, wanting to inquire further, something he would've pursued, had it not grown darker since her arrival. "Of course," he said. "Y'best be getting up to the house now, before anyone starts to think we're more than good family friends."

He'd meant it as a jest, though it came out more bitter than he expected it to. He knew the other housemaids- Alice, Ethel, Lucy, and the new one, Nellie- teased her for it when she first arrived, and perhaps they continued to, but he didn't know the answer to that question. He also knew that she hated it, and it seemed like the only way to get her to leave.

"Goodnight Tom," she said, turning to go, her composure returning with astonishing swiftness. "Take care."

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><p><strong>AN: So there's that. **

**I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for reading. Now that Sybil's in the picture, things are going to pick up and we're going to see what a housemaid might have to say on a few of the events that transpire at Downton. **

**I feel I have to answer 's question about the note, so here goes: **

**The note was originally part of the previous chapter, however, I decided to cut it because I decided that it was simple enough (in my mind) that it should be obvious. We'll see it in two chapters, along with some Sybil and Mairead interaction that might be interesting...**

**Thank you, and feel free to review~**


	7. Mischief

**A/N: So here's Chapter Seven. **

**I'm trying to do a considerable amount of updating before the weekend, so I have reviews to mull over (I also have to completely rewrite a chapter, which is always tedious) and stuff...**

**A note: I wasn't paying attention when I decided the location of the livery closet, because in one account I read about a great house like Downton, the livery closet was in the vestibule between the men's and women's quarters. Having watched S2EP2 last night, I've realized that in Downton's case, it's not. But for now, let's pretend it is. **

**Disclaimer: I'm not a Crawley, and therefore I don't own _Downton Abbey._ **

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><p><em>April 1917<em>

"You're up to something."

Mairead's accusation caught Tom off-guard, causing him to miss a buttonhole in the livery jacket he was borrowing for the evening.

He glanced up and saw her in the doorway of the women's hall, her dark eyes fixed on him as he stood outside the livery closet. "What has you thinking that?" he asked, correcting his mistake before smoothing out any wrinkles in the dark fabric of the jacket.

She placed her hands on her hips, more silhouette than anything in the dimmed lights of the hallway. "Ink and sour milk," she answered, and he could see her nose wrinkle as she took a few steps closer, her features finally coming into the light. "Don't think I don't know the smell of trouble when I catch it, Tom."

"I don't know what you mean." A lie, but she didn't need to know that. It was better that she think he wasn't planning anything against the visiting general, no matter how harmless it seemed.

She rolled her eyes, and for a moment, her mother stood in her place, and he was reminded of the time when he, along with Will, Sam, and Kieran, had planned a prank on the local priest- Father Timothy had been his name- that was similar to what he was about to do.

_A prank. _

He almost laughed at the thought of something he'd done as a prank being done as an act of objection, but laughing would only give away his guilt. Oh, how the world had changed since he was younger, both for good and for ill. The streets in Dublin where he and Sam had played as boys had become their battleground, it seemed, and a prank became a form of protest. It was all so strange to realize, that these things had changed in such a way, but some things never changed, that was certain.

"You've ink on your fingers," his cousin pointed out with the exasperation of a mother with more babes than she could handle- her mother's exasperation, passed from the older woman to the girl who stood in the small, dimly-lit vestibule. "You're lucky you haven't gotten it all over the liv'ry. I imagine Mr. Carson'd be livid if y'did."

_He'll be even more livid- no, not livid, furious. He'll be furious if I succeed, _Tom thought, keeping his expression set in its usual neutrality, even as he mentally kicked himself for letting the inkstains go unnoticed by all but him. Even though he'd be wearing gloves while serving dinner, he had no doubt that he would be reprimanded and brought under suspicion should anyone else among the staff noticed the stains.

"And the milk?"

"Daisy asked me to toss out the milk that'd soured, but where should it be when I go t'do it but missing?"

"I don't see how you'd figure it was me."

Another mental kick.

How guilty did he sound, saying that? He knew he didn't look the part- his lips kept in a tight, inexpressive line, his eyes holding his cousin's attention, and no moves made to shake the beginnings of sweat he felt slipping down his neck- but his voice could easily betray him through details so small, they may have gone unnoticed, but it wasn't something to count on. Had he hesitated? Had those last three words of his statement accidentally come out more firmly than the words preceding them?

"I remember when you, Kieran, and my brothers-" Grief flashed in her eyes, and she looked as if she were about to correct "brothers" to "brother," but she forced herself onward. "When you dumped that soup on Father Timothy. What was in it again?" she asked, her sternness falling away to show the beguiling innocence of a nine-year-old girl (which was, Tom recalled, how old Mairead had been at the time of the event).

"Ink, grease, sour milk, an' cow pat," he told her, grinning a little at the memory. "That was an amusing Sunday."

Her own lips twisted into a grin, the brightest he'd seen from her since they'd met at the platform. "It was, wasn't it?" she mused, the grin losing its brilliance to the wicked glint he caught in her eye. "And dinner'll be just as amusing for His Lordship, I reckon. Perhaps I'll slip in and watch."

_Dear Lord, _Tom thought, realizing that his cousin was perhaps a bit more clever than he'd thought. No, she wasn't. What he'd just fallen prey to was the simple cleverness of a young girl, the same young girl who learned to haggle like a farmer's wife before she could bake bread, not the cleverness of rhetoric. She knew him well enough that she knew how to get what she wanted, and she'd been willing to take the risk of him seeing through her.

Of course, fool he was, he'd fallen for it- hook, line, and sinker. There were a thousand excuses that he could make for himself, a thousand reasons as to why he'd let her get the better of him (there was one right there: he'd _let _her win), but it was as simple as him being a fool.

_A love-addled fool, _Sam had jokingly called him in a letter after Tom had written about Sybil (leaving out her name of course, as well as the fact that he was employed by her father), asking for advice. No doubt Mairead would've agreed with her brother, but now there would be no way to tell, and that was part of why Tom felt he had to make some kind of display towards the visiting general.

It was petty vengeance- he could see that- but if it came down to a life for a life, Tom knew he couldn't do it, and so this was going to be it. This was going to be as far as he'd go, horrifying His Lordship and his family by humiliating the visiting general.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. General Strutt's visit is something I thought might be interesting to touch on in terms of Mairead and Tom, and it also explores who Mairead was vs. who she is now, and how Tom deals with that. More on that later.**

**Thank you and do feel free to leave a review~**


	8. Go Between

**A/N: So I apologize for the mass updating that's going on. I want to get some of it out of the way before the weekend, and because I want to see how this goes over with the larger fanfic community. **

**Y'all have been incredibly supportive, and for that I am thankful. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey. _**

**Disclaimer Pt. 2: This chapter (chronologically) belongs after S2EP2, but contains references to events from S2EP5 and S2EP6, because reasons. **

**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>May 1917<em>

Mairead wasn't surprised to hear that Tom and Lady Sybil's affair had been found out by none other than Lady Mary. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and the Lord knew it would be much worse for the two lovers (specifically Tom) if they'd been discovered by O'Brien or Mr. Carson.

It was sure to be trouble if O'Brien found out, anyone could see that. Even keeping to herself hadn't spared Mairead from the wrath of the lady's maid, though she had the good luck of escaping with no more than a scolding, and not a sacking. Mairead didn't believe in people who were completely, one-hundred-percent evil, but she found herself questioning that belief as she spent more time in the servants' hall doing Lady Sybil's mending while O'Brien worked on Her Ladyship's garments, her eyes darting to the young Irishwoman, as if the transition between housemaid and revolutionary could happen in a trice.

The older woman smelled like tobacco smoke layered over diluted perfume, and the desire she seemed to have, to want to have every member of the staff who posed a threat to her or her nephew (who was actually quite decent, and it made Mairead wonder if O'Brien was just a black sheep) spend the rest of their days at Downton looking over their shoulder made her someone to be wary of. Every ounce of self-preservation that Mairead had acquired in her career as a housemaid screamed to be cautious around this woman. She was ambitious, that was for certain, but her ambition was dangerous, seeing as there was nothing the lady's maid would stop at to achieve her ends.

If O'Brien found out, only the Lord knew what would happen. Mairead assumed that she'd tell Her Ladyship, who would then tell His Lordship, who would then tell Mr. Carson to sack Tom and that would be that. Sybil would be devastated (Mairead regretted admitting that she was starting to care for the woman Tom loved, if only slightly), and Mairead had the feeling that the lady would make good on her promise to run away with Tom, something she knew His Lordship wouldn't stand for.

Carson finding out only meant a quick, probably unexplained sacking of the chauffeur, and perhaps a mention of the affair to His Lordship. That was the kind of man the butler struck her to be, the kind who dealt with the source of the problem in a way that drew little to no attention to it. It kept the house running smoothly, that Mairead wouldn't deny, and she couldn't complain if she was still making a decent sum with no unpleasant expectations of her.

She wondered if Anna suspected anything, especially after finding the note addressed to Sybil begging forgiveness for an action that Tom never went through with (and thank God for that!). To be honest, Mairead wasn't sure where her opinion on the head housemaid stood, whether she could be trusted or not. She wasn't as irritable as O'Brien, which was always something to be thankful for, but instinct told Mairead that the amount of kindness Anna was capable of displaying was meant to make harsh remarks sting even more. No one could be that nice, not without having something to hide at least.

It amused Mairead, how in her previous post she'd known figures similar to many of the staff of Downton. Her mother, though easily younger by decades, was a female reflection of Mr. Carson, her fading brown hair done up in a knot that was purely functional, her stern, always-level voice compensating for the lack of authority usually commanded by her lithe figure, and her way of executing every task with deadly precision. The butler of Downton and the housekeeper of the Downing family differed in that he was more Duncan than Lady Macbeth, which was how Mairead saw it after reading _Macbeth_ (it'd been a gift from Sam and Isibàel for Christmas a few years ago, along with her brother's copies of _The Taming of the Shrew_ and _As You Will_). O'Brien was a close match to Mrs. Peters, who'd been lady's maid to Mrs. Downing when Mairead left, and known co-conspirator with Mr. Downing's valet. Anna's kindness could be found in memories of Kate, the dark-haired kitchen maid who was somehow able to soothe even the most violent tempers (the scullery maid used to remark on how Kate could probably convince the unicorns to come back to England, which was a silly notion, given that unicorns probably didn't exist in the first place).

"Mairead, Mr. Branson asked me to give this to you," Mrs. Hughes said, presenting the housemaid with a plain envelope that had her name written in her cousin's neat handwriting on the back.

"Thank you Mrs. Hughes," came her reply as she took the envelope, opening it with her thumbnail (a crude method, but it was rather efficient, so Mairead could hardly complain). She wondered what her cousin had to say, that he couldn't say it to her straight-on.

The housekeeper nodded. "You're very welcome," she said. "Now don't be long- the gong'll ring any minute now."

The gong.

Only recently had Mairead had to "heed the gong," as Alice put it, seeing as Lady Sybil had asked for Mairead to train as a lady's maid, which Anna had agreed to, saying it would be a good experience for the third housemaid. Of course, this served as a cover, allowing Mairead to be the (somewhat reluctant) go-between for her cousin and the youngest Crawley sister. She had no intention of progressing beyond being a housemaid, but it was nice, she supposed, to have a chance to prepare for the inevitable day when she would be head housemaid. It would come eventually, that day when she sat in Anna's place at the servants' table, but for now she was stuck with O'Brien's nephew on one side and Lucy on the other. By the time that day came, all the Crawley sisters would be married, and there'd be no point in having a lady's maid's skills, unless O'Brien took ill or left.

"Of course." Mairead turned her attention to the letter, her eyes darting along the page, hoping to finish it before anyone else came in to disrupt her.

_Mairead- _

_Please tell Lady Sybil not to come down to the garage for a while. It's too risky, and I don't dare show myself up at the house for some time either. I think it will be better for the both of us, at least until we can get it sorted out. _

_Thank you,_

_Tom_

She folded the letter and slipped it into her apron pocket, making sure it wasn't going to fall out between now and the upstairs dinner. There was too great of a risk of Tom and Sybil's affair being exposed if the wrong person (meaning everyone but Mairead, Sybil, and Tom) happened upon it, not to mention she was at risk of being sacked for acting as a go-between. She could picture Mr. Carson now, reprimanding her "for encouraging and enabling scandalous activities," and it didn't make her laugh, as it might one of the other maids. She knew he'd be right, that she was doing just that, and it would all fall on her head.

As she climbed the servants' staircase to Lady Sybil's dressing room, she rehearsed her cousin's message in her head, hoping that the lady would take it to heart and exercise caution in regard to her affair. She knocked on Sybil's door softly, taking half a step back out of caution.

"Come in," the youngest Crawley sister said, and Mairead obeyed, opening the door just wide enough for her to slip through before easing it shut. "Oh Mairead, it's you! Any word from Tom?"

"Yes m'lady," Mairead answered, setting to work with helping Lady Sybil change into her dress for dinner, deftly handling the delicate fabric, as if she'd been brought up to manage the wardrobe of a lady such as Lady Sybil.

A smile spread across her face, and the room seemed to brighten (_Look at you, _Mairead thought. _You're not even in love with her-and thank Heaven for that!- and you're seeing it all the same way as Tom. Silly lass._). "What does he have to say?"

Mairead took a breath, steadying herself and preparing her words. "He thinks you should stay away from the garage for some time, m'lady. Now that Lady Mary knows, he thinks it would be best if-"

"If he loves me, he'll brave whatever happens as a result," the lady interrupted, glancing over her shoulder at Mairead, watching as the housemaid did up the back of her dress. "He knows I'd risk so-called ruin for him, so why won't he risk the same for me?"

"Because it's different for us, m'lady." The words came out laced with more venom than intended, and Mairead could see the shock in Lady Sybil's dark eyes. "For us, this is how we make our way in the world."

"Certainly there are other ways," came Sybil's response. She was clearly trying to recover from Mairead's words, trying to be insightful, but all Mairead heard was the unawareness that the upper class had of anything other than dinner parties and balls.

"There are," she countered. "But they're by no means as reliable, nor are they guaranteed to be as safe as life in service." _Best to try and soothe the wound, _she thought, going to retrieve the necklace and earrings that went with the gown, leaving Sybil to seat herself at the vanity.

"Where did you work before Downton, then?" The lady seemed to have recovered from the brief spat, perhaps realizing that the world her maid belonged to was very different from her own.

There was only a moment's hesitation before Mairead answered, "Manchester, m'lady."

A look passed across the lady's features, one Mairead recognized as containing a hint of pity. But why? Was it the feigned pity of the upper class that they so often directed towards their staff or lessers, or was it genuine?

"So you worked in a factory then?"

"No m'lady." Mairead ran the soft brush through Lady Sybil's dark hair, smoothing out the curls and gently working through the small knots that came with having one's hair in the same position all day.

"Where then?"

"In the Downing household." She felt her heart quicken at the name of her previous employers, an unpleasant sort of quickening, like when you get unnecessarily frightened but are left with the adrenaline of it all in your blood for ages.

"I don't think I've ever heard the name," Sybil remarked. "When were they presented at court?"

"They're not peers, m'lady," came Mairead's reply. "Mr. Downing's father made a fortune in steel and iron, and the family's been in the business ever since."

Dark eyes lit up. "Industrialists then?"

"Yes, m'lady."

"Any children?"

_His Lordship might be more upset if she married one of the Downing boys than if she married Tom, _Mairead mused, coaxing Sybil's dark hair into an intricate chignon. She knew it wasn't true, that His Lordship would prefer the son of a wealthy industrialist to a chauffeur any day, especially since the Downing family had money.

"Two sons and a daughter, m'lady."

"I suppose the sons are serving now?"

"I don't know, m'lady." _And I don't care. _

"Mairead, you mustn't call me "m'lady" all the time," Sybil said, turning around to face the maid. "Soon Tom and I will be married, and it'll be just "Sybil," understand?"

Mairead gave the woman a quick nod. "Certainly, m'l-Sybil. Will that be all?"

A defeated sigh escaped the youngest Crawley sister's lips. "I suppose it shall. I can dress myself for bed tonight, Mairead, so don't wait up for me."

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><p><strong>AN: Mairead doesn't like Sybil much, does she? Well, we'll see I suppose, if she warms up to Sybil or not. And what about the Downings? What's the deal with them? I don't know. We'll see. **

**Until then, thank you for reading and please let me know what you think. **

**Thank you~**


	9. In the Courtyard

**A/N: I know at some point I promised some chapters from the POV of other staff members, so here's the first one, with none other than Mr. Thomas Barrow. **

**Disclaimer: Same as every other chapter. Don't own _Downton Abbey. _Got it? Good. **

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><p><em>February 1918 <em>

Cold air bit at the tips of Thomas's fingers as he took a drag of his cigarette, enjoying the stillness that trembled in the courtyard. Overhead, there was nothing but a sky so pale blue it was almost white, and occasionally, he spotted the dark shapes of birds as they winged their way to God-knows-where. Silence hung over the hoarfrost-riddled space, framing the familiar scene of a hall boy collecting coal for the house while another carried wood in through the servants' entrance.

_It's as if some things never change, _he thought, pursing his lips and exhaling silently, as if anything louder than a breath would rob the moment of its pristine beauty forever.

"Leave me be!"

Thomas's jaw tightened as the plea split the silence, even though it was no more than a whispered hiss, barely loud enough to be heard from his usual spot. He'd almost forgotten the dramatics of the housemaids, the vicious exchanges of soured courtships (courtships that were already doomed by their occupation), and sobbing anger of the young women who came to lick their wounds in what was usually the domain of hallboys and footmen. Some, of course, sought solitude here, such as himself, and others came to smoke and neglect their work (he was also among those "others," though not as often as O'Brien was), perhaps then, would a housemaid venture outdoors.

"Why? So you can snitch on us and get us sacked too?"

His attention flickered over towards the door, which was hanging open, allowing some of the sound to drift from the kitchen and hallway, into the courtyard. Not far from the door, he caught sight of the dirty-blonde hair and slightly pinched features of Lucy, along with her accomplice-Nellie was her name- who hung back almost like a reluctant shadow. There was a third housemaid, and for a moment Thomas thought it might be her dramatics that drew Lucy and Nellie outside, that maybe he would get to witness a proper spat between the three housemaids.

He wondered what it was a fight over.

It had to be something like a footman (though Molesley wasn't worth it, in Thomas's opinion, and neither was Lang), or even a hall boy, for if he knew anything about Lucy, it was a petty issue like courtship. All he wanted was for them to get it over with and leave, so he could enjoy the peace and quiet while there wasn't anyone calling after him to do this or do that. True, it was less of a bore than life in service, when it was the same thing all the time, day after day, but it felt twice as demanding, even if he was more or less in charge.

"For the last time, I didn't tell!"

Thomas could hear a distinctly Irish lilt as the third maid raised her voice, putting a considerable amount of force behind it as she did so. Once more, he found himself wondering, this time about what Lucy was accusing her of. The Lord knew Lucy did her share of "snitching," and Thomas admitted that sometimes he did too, but always within reason, unlike the blonde maid.

The only reasons she stirred up trouble was for the sake of trouble, without regard for tact or strategy. Lucy, Thomas concluded, didn't understand the concept of biding one's time, which was what he'd found to be most useful. At least he was careful about covering his tracks, whereas Lucy wanted everyone to know it was her, as if she expected applause for giving the downstairs the semblance of a farce. She was as bellicose as O'Brien could be at times, but unlike the lady's maid, Lucy's anger rarely built up, and it was inspired by petty things. O'Brien knew how to hold a grudge, patience being her chief (if only) virtue, and that made her all the more powerful, and far better a partner than Lucy.

"Who else could've known but you?" Lucy challenged, her hands on her waist as she took a purposeful step towards her victim. "It's not like Ethel was making a show of it."

_So that's what this is about, _he thought, taking another drag of his cigarette and quietly making his way a little closer to the quarrel. He positioned himself between a few stacks of crates, out of the maids' direct line of sight, but still in a position to watch it from a distance.

He had no desire to intervene, not when watching it unfold was all the more...interesting. It was one thing to cause a stir, but a whole other to watch it, and for once, Thomas opted for watching. Maybe he could gain something useful from this- information to use at a later date, perhaps- but that all depended on his ability to remain silent. Folks spoke more if they didn't know you were there- that was something he'd learned a long time ago- and he intended to glean as much information as he possibly could, because the Lord knew it might be useful later.

"I don't see what that's got t'do with anything," the auburn-haired maid protested. "You know I stay out of gossip."

"But that doesn't keep you from hearing it, does it?"

"So what if I do?"

A smirk crossed Lucy's lips. "You're just protecting your little romance with the chauffeur, aren't ya? Isn't he a bit old for ya?"

"I'm not-"

"Oh, but y'are, aren't ya? I see how you look at him whenever he comes up to the house."

"The same way y'looked at that one officer th'other day," he heard Nellie chime in.

Thomas could picture Lucy arching her brow at Alice's comment, creating the effect of a weasel who'd found a chicken all on its own and was now intent on pursuing it.

"Because he worked with me at m'last post, that's why!"

"Then why'd y'leave?" Lucy challenged, taking a step towards her victim, effectively cornering the young woman. "He's 'andsome enough t'be worth staying in Hell for."

Thomas came closer, so he would be able to see and hear everything better, keeping his distance enough to be ignored. Perhaps there was something to be learned from this confrontation, pointless though it seemed. There was some sort of connection between the auburn-haired maid and the chauffeur (besides the fact that both were Irish, though didn't birds of a feather usually flock together?), as well as a connection to one of the officers, which he could easily investigate if he chose to.

From this newfound vantage point, he could see something undecipherable flash across the maid's eyes at the mention of her previous post. _Now why would that be? _the ex-footman wondered, furrowing his brow. He knew there were plenty of reasons to leave service, or to go to another household, and he had some sort of idea about what had prompted the girl to leave, but, before he came to a conclusion himself, he would simply watch and gather evidence, then decide.

She didn't seem like the sort who would be sacked for breaking rules or speaking out of turn; she had a cleverness to her, which Thomas recognized almost immediately in the way she seemed to be playing with Lucy as much as the blonde maid was playing with her. She practically radiated pride, cornered as she was, her chin held high and dark eyes lit up with the steady burn of someone who aspired to more than what she was, who did above and beyond what was required of her, and took pride in her work (even if it was all for naught, as the work of maids and footmen often seemed). He liked that, and he reckoned Mr. Carson did too, unless she was as sharp-tongued indoors as she was now. That made her useful, for sure, as long as she knew where she stood, and he didn't doubt she did.

"There wasn't anything for me in Manchester," came her flat reply as she backed up, almost losing her footing on the flagstones.

"If we asked Officer Grant why Meg left, what would 'e say?" Lucy wondered aloud.

"He'd tell the truth," Meg stated, making a move to force Lucy back and perhaps open an avenue of escape, only to be shoved backwards by the taller girl. Thomas could see her jaw tighten as she clambered to her feet, taking a couple of steps back from Lucy and Nellie. Her chest rose and fell as she struggled to keep her expression neutral, though he could feel the quiet rage that charged the air around her, the kind of rage that stemmed from humiliation and built up over time.

He barely noticed that his cigarette had gone cold, a thread of smoke curling up from the stub between his fingers, the last sign of heat before a sharp breeze killed it completely. The confrontation between the maids had captured his attention, and he almost forgot that those three had interrupted his morning ritual. His curiosity had been piqued by Meg's history, and (though he would never admit it) he was beginning to sympathize with the girl, seeing her pushed around by Lucy. If he hadn't a reputation to maintain, he supposed he might make a friend of her, though she would be a valuable ally regardless.

The two weren't the same, however close they seemed. Anna and William had been friends (ever since they were small, apparently), but William and Matthew Crawley were allies, just two soldiers on the same side, and nothing more. It was as simple as that. Lucy and Nellie? They were allies, that was for sure, though Nellie probably thought they were friends, which was her mistake.

"Which is…?"

"I told ya," Meg said, ignoring the dark red curl that'd fallen out of place. "There wasn't anything for me."

"Thought you'd have a go at the country boys, then?" Lucy raised her brows, looking down on the shorter maid much in the same way Mr. Carson looked down on Branson, her disapproval evident. "Couldn't find a fellow who didn't know what making love to an Irish slut was like? Or did they realize you weren't worth risking their jobs? Which is it?"

Meg's jaw dropped, and her hands curled into fists at her side, shaking ever-so slightly as she fought to keep her injury from showing. "Wha'e'er happened to minding your own business?" she bristled. "Lord knows you've been with every hall boy at some time or other."

Thomas bit back a laugh as he slunk away, leaving the three to continue their spat until Mrs. Hughes or Mrs. Patmore came out to scold them- he wasn't in the mood to interfere, not when it meant he'd get pulled into the mess too. He made a note to keep an eye on Meg though, and to keep an ear out for any more pieces of her story. He'd ask Officer Grant about her as soon as he reported for duty, and see how many of Lucy's accusations had been false.

So far the day was looking bright for him. No unpleasant exchanges between him and O'Brien, no too-curious-for-their-own-good hall boys, and no unwanted attention in general. That was something Thomas would consider an accomplishment, not to mention that he'd identified a potential ally in Meg. Only time would tell where that went, of course, but he was surprisingly optimistic about her, having recognized in her so many of the traits he'd possessed as a young man just entering service: ambition, cleverness, and pride. She could very well end up as Downton's housekeeper some day, and he wanted to be there when she did.

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. **

**This chapter was a fun challenge for me to write, because it's rather daunting, trying to get inside Thomas's head and figure out what he might see in Mairead. He strikes me as the kind of person who would hang out in the courtyard in the early morning just to have that one cigarette, and he likes to have it alone, most times, I'd reckon. I definitely want to know what you think, about whether or not he would actually care about the dramatics of housemaids, or if he would even care to ally himself with Mairead. I guess what I'm going at is how true-to-canon did I manage to write him? **

**So with that, reviews are more than welcome, and yes, we will be seeing more of Thomas in the future. **

**Thank you~**


	10. Dismissal

**A/N: So this is the end of my updating spree for now. **

**I wanted to bring in some more senior staff POV stuff, so here's a bit with Mrs. Hughes. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey, _nor is Lucy mine. Nellie's mine though. **

**Enjoy~**

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><p>"These three were out squabblin' in the courtyard just now," Mrs. Patmore declared as she opened the door to Elsie's sitting room, hovering just on the other side of the threshold as she ushered in Lucy, Nellie, and finally, Mairead. "They were making enough ruckus to wake the dead, mind you. It's a wonder Sergeant Barrow"-her nose wrinkled at the ex-footman's new title- "didn't bring them to you 'imself."<p>

Elsie suppressed a resigned sigh and nodded. "Thank you, Mrs. Patmore," she said, turning her attention to the maids and assuming an air of command.

The cook let out a satisfied "hmphf," before closing the door behind her, leaving the housekeeper alone with three of her charges.

"Could any of you girls explain why Mrs. Patmore felt the need to bring you to me?"

It was Lucy who spoke first, taking a step so she was out of line with Mairead and Nellie and lifting her chin with an awkward jerk, as if she were being torn from a reverie. "We were telling Mairead that she ought to 'ave told you about Ethel and Major Bryant, so you'd be able to nip it in the bud before it got to the point that you 'ad to sack her," she said, her shoulders rolling back as she cast a glance at Mairead.

The sigh she'd been able to suppress earlier slipped past Elsie's lips at the mention of Ethel, and, as much as she wanted to dismiss Lucy's accusation, Elsie knew she would be better off dealing with this while it was between the three housemaids, before it expanded beyond a realm of her control. There wouldn't be any peace until judgement was passed, that was sure, but how was she to do that without appearing to take sides? Lucy, Nellie, and Mairead were all hard workers, and for that Elsie was grateful, especially with Downton playing host to so many injured soldiers as it was, but she didn't know them well enough to act fairly.

"Mairead, is this true?" The housekeeper's gaze settled on the young woman, who stood at attention, her lips settled in an unreadable line.

Ever since their first meeting, when Mairead'd come to be interviewed for her post, Elsie had been impressed by the young woman, not only because of her hard work, but the forthright manner with which she'd admitted to leaving her previous post because she felt uncomfortable with her mother as the housekeeper. There were few who would admit to something like that, and she could tell that even Mairead had almost been too proud to tell the truth, hesitating before revealing her reason to Downton's housekeeper.

There were times when she wondered what Mairead's mother was like, though she kept from asking out of respect for the girl's privacy. It was possible that the young woman didn't really know her mother, seeing as she was most likely raised by an aunt until she was old enough to work, which seemed the only likely way that a housekeeper could manage raising children.

Lucy glanced at Mairead again, this time giving her head a little toss, as if she were a prize pony at the fair. Her eyebrows rose in questioning arches, and Elsie caught a trace of smugness in the blonde maid's pursed lips.

"Lucy, Nellie," she said, watching Nellie this time, trying to gauge what her role in all this was, "wait in the servants' hall until I send for you."

"Yes Mrs. Hughes," Nellie murmured, giving a quick bow before stepping towards the door, and then, as if she'd forgotten something, glancing back at Lucy, who hadn't moved. "Lucy, Mrs. Hughes asked us to go."

"I know, but you go on. I wont' be long," Lucy said. "Just got t'make sure of something."

Had Elsie not been exhausted from dealing with Ethel as well as other disruptions that'd come up since the woman's dismissal, she would've repeated herself, perhaps even summoned Carson to help her, but she only made a quick gesture of dismissal towards Nellie and let her focus settle on Lucy and Mairead. She'd try to keep this quick, so poor Nellie wasn't left waiting on her own for too long. The sooner this was over with, the sooner things could make their way back to normalcy, and the sooner the housekeeper could catch her breath.

"Mairead, is Lucy telling the truth? Did you know about Ethel and Major Bryant?"

"No ma'am," Mairead answered, giving her head a gentle shake as her brows came together in a fleeting expression of worry. "I didn't know."

_Which means Lucy's lying, _Elsie concluded silently, watching Lucy's eyes narrow and her jaw clench in what could only be frustration. Had she really expected that she would get away with her accusation? It was a high hope for the maid to have, that the housekeeper would be so easily fooled. _Or Mairead is. _

"Are y'just saying that because it's not useful to you anymore, now that Ethel's out of your way?"

"Lucy!"

"What?" The housemaid's eyes widened in an expression of innocence that dripped with falsehood to the point that Elsie felt she might retch. "It is the truth, Mrs. Hughes. She's not as innocent as she looks- she's almost as bad as Thomas or Mrs. O'Brien, not t'mention she's sweet on that rabble-rouser of a chauffeur. _Too _sweet, I might say."

That was it.

In her three years at Downton, Lucy always sought trouble, sometimes creating it as she was now, but it had always been small, always been harmless. Never had Mrs. Hughes been put in a position where she had to act as the law when it came to Lucy. True, the girl had always bothered the housekeeper, with her dangerous charisma and her habit of stepping out of line, but she was a hard worker, and Elsie appreciated it enough to turn a blind eye.

_Well look what that led to, _she thought. her lips pressed together as she kept her attention fixated on Lucy, like a hawk on its prey. She kept some kindness in her eyes after she caught Mairead's expression harden, as if she were bracing herself to be scolded by the housekeeper.

"Mairead can defend herself, I think," the housekeeper said. "And you, Miss Bower, can go pack your valise and say your goodbyes."

It was a cruel judgement to make, but in her heart, Elsie knew it would be for the better if Lucy was dismissed. She'd write a good reference, of course (a hard worker like Lucy deserved at least that much), and would send the girl with what was owed her, but she simply couldn't keep her on the staff. Lucy was smart- she'd find something that was perhaps better than life in service- and Elsie wished her all the best.

Lucy swallowed, her smug demeanor faltering for a moment. "Yes Mrs. Hughes," she said, forcing her lips to bend into a haughty smile. "I'll be out on the noon train then."

"And it's best you are," Elsie said, shaking her head. "I'll draw up your reference and settle your wages right away, don't you worry."

_And I'll ask Mr. Carson to place an advertisement at the registrar's as soon as he's able, _she thought wearily. Two maids in the last week… Mr. Carson was going to have a fit when he found out, that was for sure.

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><p><strong>AN: So there's Lucy out of the picture. I thought it might be interesting to explore the topic of Ethel (I didn't like her that much, personally, but then again, Gwen was always my favorite) in relationship to the other housemaids, and I thought it might be interesting to have Mrs. Hughes (aka The Mother of Team Downstairs) have a moment with Mairead, especially in one of these "under pressure" situations, like when you're accused of hiding information. The Lord knows what Mairead knows about everything in the staff (even I get a bit shocked sometimes, realizing that "whoa, she picked up on (for example) Ethel's major crush on every male ever (sorry, I don't like her that much, so I poke fun at her) but specifically Major Bryant, but didn't say anything?" **

**And this is why Thomas might find her valuable in the future...just saying. **

**Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you all have lovely weekends~ I will finish as soon as I can so I can go back to updating like a total crazy woman. **

**Thank you~**


	11. Elopement

**A/N: So here's chapter eleven. **

**This is further exploration of the Sybil-Mairead dynamic, as well as a polite nod to tumblr users ladysybilbransonn and wintersbxcky, who helped me through the dynamic a lot in the early stages of Mairead's development. **

**I hope you enjoy reading this, and soon we'll be more caught up and Mairead'll be making a bit more of a stir, I think. ****  
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**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey_  
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**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>March 1919<em>

_Knock. Knock. _

"M'lady?"

Mairead was greeted with silence, and so, she tried again, careful to keep her voice down, in case any of the Crawley women or Miss Swire were resting before the dressing gong rang, which would be within the next half-hour or so.

"M'lady?"

Her second attempt was greeted with the same silence as the first, and Mairead felt her heart begin to quicken in her chest. She thought of all the possible explanations for why Lady Sybil hadn't answered her as she waited outside in the hall, trying to keep the impatient smirk from creeping across her face.

_She probably fell asleep, _Mairead thought as she glanced up the hall, still waiting.

Finally, she heard Lady Sybil's soft "come in," and she obeyed, her heart settling back into a steady rhythm as she opened the door. "Good evening m'lady," she said, closing the door behind her.

Lady Sybil didn't glance up from the bag she was packing. "Oh, good evening Mairead," she said. "How are you?"

Mairead eyed the bag. _That's odd, _she thought, still rooted in place. _I don't remember Mrs. Hughes saying anything about Lady Sybil traveling. _

"I'm well, m'lady," came the maid's answer. "Would you like me to do that for you during dinner?"

Sybil shook her head. "No thank you. I can manage it on my own." She abandoned the bag and perched herself on the bed, watching as Mairead returned a couple dresses to the wardrobe. "Have you seen Tom at all today?"

"No m'lady," Mairead said, not pausing her work. "He went to pick up the Dowager and Mrs. Crawley from the village not long ago, a'least that's what Mrs. Moorsum said."

The older woman was always "Mrs. Moorsum" to Mairead, never "Jane," no matter how many times she or Anna corrected her, or assured her that it was alright to refer to her by her Christian name.

"Did he leave you with any messages?"

"No. Like I said, I haven't seen him all day." She stopped with her dusting and glanced at Sybil. "Were you expecting something from him?"

The lady's posture loosened, her shoulders curving inward as her chin dipped to her chest. "No," she said, her voice noticeably more sullen. After a moment of pensive silent, she raised her head and met Mairead's gaze. "Mairead, can you keep a secret?"

Mairead was no stranger to secrets; everyone had them, and Lord knew she had some of her own. "I can try m'lady," she said. "Things don't stay secret for long in this house, but I will do my best." The observation came out without much thought, and she cursed herself for saying such a thing, which would certainly shed a less trustworthy light on her in Lady Sybil's eyes.

"I'd imagine it's something you'll want to keep to yourself, since it's about Tom."

_Please don't let it be that you're pregnant. _

Hopefully Tom hadn't gotten Sybil pregnant- that would just add a whole other twist in things, for sure. Between him and Sam, Tom had always been the more responsible one, and Mairead could only hope that being in love with Lady Sybil hadn't changed that. She couldn't picture him intentionally impregnating a woman who wasn't his wife (never mind the daughter of his employer), but he'd clearly changed since coming to Downton. Maybe part of that change had been that he'd become more reckless- his affair with Sybil had hinted at it enough that it seemed likely.

"Certainly m'lady."

_Don't be pregnant, _Mairead found herself thinking again. _Or else I might have to get at him before Mr. Carson and Mrs. Hughes do. Nevermind what his mam'll say. _

"Tom and I are going to elope."

The spring that'd been coiled in Mairead's chest released itself, only to snap back into place and drop a weight in her stomach. "Eloping?" That was almost just as bad as Lady Sybil being with child, perhaps even worse. "When?"

"Do you swear not to tell anyone?"

"I-"

"Swear it."

"M'lady-"

"Sybil," she corrected, her words followed by a heavy sigh. "I won't be "m'lady" after tonight. I'll be Sybil Branson, do you understand?"  
>The small victory of receiving an answer to her question without having to swear secrecy was forgotten in Mairead's astonishment at Sybil's declaration. "Yes m'la- Yes Sybil." It felt odd, using the lady's first name without any title attached, or forgoing the "m'lady."<p>

Back in the Downing's household, none of the family members were titled, but even then, it was Mr. and Mrs. Downing, and their children, Master Richard, Miss Helen, and Master Nathaniel. Here, at Downton, it was different, obviously, because the Crawleys were titled. There was Lord and Lady Grantham, and the Ladies Mary, Edith, and Sybil. "Yes miss," and "yes sir" became "yes m'lady," and "yes m'lord," with some difficulty on Mairead's part, but she'd gotten it eventually, and that was what ought to count in the grand scheme of things.

"Splendid. Now, do you swear not to tell a single soul under this roof about what I've just told you?"

Now it was Mairead's turn to let a sigh pass over her lips. "I swear."

What was she getting into? She might as well've helped Mr. Barrow with the black market business she'd overheard him talking about in the courtyard the other morning. It would probably be less risky than aiding in an elopement, not to mention that she wouldn't be putting herself in a dangerous position.

She pressed her lips together. Tom_ better appreciate whatever it is I suffer because of him._

"Do you need me to do anything?" She cringed just asking that question, because if Sybil asked, she couldn't refuse the lady, not without putting her job even more on the line than it was.

Sybil gave her head a quick shake. "Aside from keeping this to yourself, I don't think so," she said. "I'll send a telegram when we're safely away, but you're not to breathe a word of this to anyone."

"Understood m'lady." Mairead braced herself for Sybil's reproach, but thankfully, the other woman kept quiet. "I only hope you and Tom know what you're doing, and I hope you understand what it means for him if you're caught."

"Mairead, I understand full well what he's risking, and it's admirable to see the kind of devotion I've seen you display towards him in a woman your age," Sybil said. "If you are put on the spot because of this, I give you permission to say I made you cover for me, and you have no idea where we've gone."

"Where will you go m'lady?"

Sybil pursed her lips. "Gretna Green," she answered. "Mairead, may I ask a question?"

"I suppose you may, m'lady. The gong's going to ring any moment however, and-"

"And you're where you're supposed to be when it does," the lady interrupted. "Does anyone downstairs know you and Tom are cousins?"

"Why do y'ask m'lady?"

"I'm just curious, that's all, really."

Mairead took a deep breath. "No m'lady."

"Not even Mrs. Hughes? Anna?"

She shook her head. "Not even them, no."

"Oh."

"Will that be all, Sybil?"

The youngest Crawley sister hesitated, then nodded. "Yes, thank you," she said. "You've been a blessing, truly. Best of luck to you."

"Likewise, and godspeed, m'lady."

As she left Lady Sybil's room for what seemed like the last time, Mairead could only think of what would come of this, if anything, and she prayed that Tom truly knew what he was doing.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed~ **

**As you can see, Mairead has warmed up to Sybil a little more, and Sybil's trying to help with that process...too bad she's going to die in 1920, but maybe she and Mairead will have a friendship of sorts then. Who knows? **

**As usual, reviews make my world go 'round, and it helps me improve on my writing a whole ****lot, so those make me happy. Do feel free if there's any interactions you want to see, because I have a year to fill between Tom and Sybil getting married and Tom showing up after the whole Dublin thing, and it'll be interesting to explore Mairead and other upstairs folks/other downstairs folks for sure. Anna, Mr. Bates, Molesley, Carson, and Jimmy are definitely on the list for future chapters pre-Sybil's death, but if there's anything, let me know. **

**Thank you~**


	12. Falling Out

**A/N: So here's chapter twelve. **

**I hope you've enjoyed thus far, and your support is highly valued and I am very grateful for your feedback. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey_**

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><p>Tom returned from Gretna Green just as the staff was finishing breakfast, but he waited until most of them had had cleared out of the servants' hall to enter, his uniform jacket folded over his arm. He managed to pick out Mairead from the rest of the housemaids, and if he wasn't still reeling from last night's turn of events, he would've laughed (or at least cracked a smile) at the curl of hair that had apparently broken free from Mairead's tight bun. Instead, he watched as she rose from her place between Jane and Nellie, collected her breakfast dishes, and made her way to the kitchen.<p>

"Mairead, a word?"

She paused, glancing across the few feet that stood between them with arched brows. "A quick one, sure," she said. Tom could see the impatient twitch in the corner of her lips as she waited for whatever he had to say.

"Alone," he clarified, glancing about the main hall, hoping she would pick up on the private nature of what he had to say. "Please."

She came closer, her plates still in hand. "I can't, I've got work t'do," she told him, holding the plates up for emphasis. "So d'you."

"I'll make it quick." There was no suppressing the sigh that preceeded his words. The silent hour and a half from here to Gretna Green had worn his patience thin, and keeping his thoughts from replaying last night in his head expended a considerable amount of energy, putting him in no mood to quarrel with his cousin.

"I've got to get these to Mrs. Patmore, and then there's the library to straighten up, then the bedrooms. Can't it wait?"

"I'd like it if we could get it over with," he said, shifting his weight and hoping that he didn't seem too frustrated with Mairead's stalling. He knew she was hoping Mr. Carson or Mrs. Hughes would come along and tell him to leave her be, and he knew he'd have no choice but to oblige, at least until after dinner.

"Well we can." She angled her body away from where he stood, still rooted in place, and made her way to the kitchen, calling "after luncheon," over her shoulder.

Oh no you don't, he thought as he followed her, going as quickly as he dared, for fear of angering the senior staff. There was no point in getting sidetracked because he'd collided with a hall boy or Mrs. O'Brien, and the Lord knew his frayed nerves might snap and ruin whatever chances he had at Lady Sybil if he did.

He followed her as deep into the kitchen as the sink (the part of him that had pointed out the stray curl earlier made a point of saying that Mrs. Patmore must've decided it wasn't worth the fight to forbid Mairead from coming any further than the cook's desk), and as soon as she'd set her dishes down, he caught her by the elbow, turning her to face him. "Now, Mairead," he said sternly.

His cousin made one attempt to shake him off, though he knew she would've made at least two more if they'd been on their own. "Let go, Tom," she protested. "I've got work t'see to, and no doubt you'll be needed soon enough, I'd imagine."

"It'll be there when we're done, I promise you," he assured her, gently tugging her away from the sink, hopefully towards somewhere where the two cousins could speak in private.

"Y'can't promise that." She dug her heels into the flagstone of the kitchen, reaching for the long worktable and using the corner for an anchor. "I told ya. We can talk after luncheon."

"It can't wait 'til then." He closed his eyes, trying to gather his patience, trying to keep his voice firm without making it seem as if he were lecturing her.

"It'll have to." She made a half-hearted attempt to free herself from him, but he only tightened his hold enough to let her know he was serious, that what he had to say couldn't wait. "Let go," she repeated through clenched teeth, her dark eyes flitting to hall over his shoulder.

Tom turned to see what'd caught he attention, and found himself face to face with Mrs. Hughes.

"May I ask what's going on?" The housekeeper's eyes widened as she came further into the kitchen, taking slow steps as if she were circling a crime scene. Her attention passed between Mairead and Tom, and her brows were drawn tight with thought. "I would like to know now, if you don't mind," she added.

Mairead met the older woman's gaze unflinchingly. "Mr. Branson's said he has news for me, but I asked him to wait until after luncheon," she said. "Mrs. Moorsum'll be waiting for me t'help with the library."

"I'm sure she can wait five more minutes," Mrs. Hughes said, offering Mairead a kind smile.

Tom couldn't help the smug grin that spread itself across his lips like a cat in the autumn sun. "Thank you Mrs. Hughes," he said. "I won't keep Mairead for long."

"You better not." She walked with them out to the corridor. "If you'd like privacy, I don't see why you can't use my sitting room. Just don't do anything foolish, understood?"

"Yes Mrs. Hughes," Mairead said.

"Good. I'll tell Jane that you're on your way then." And with that, the housekeeper left them to find their way to her sitting room on their own.

Tom led Mairead down the hall, still leading her by the elbow as if she were a recalcitrant child in need of yet another scolding. She didn't resist, nor did she utter a single word until they were separated from the main corridor by the door of Mrs. Hughes's sitting room. Even then, it was a while before she spoke, and she remained standing by the door with one hand on the doorknob, the other at her side.

"Did Lady Sybil change her mind?"

He furrowed his brows and shook his head. "No," he was quick to say, followed by: "How did you know we—"

"Eloped?" She folded her arms loosely across her chest and took a step away from the door. "She told me last night, before the gong rang for dinner."

"You must've thought it was crazy. The daughter of an earl eloping with a chauffeur, imagine that!"

"I did, yeah."

"And so you told Anna, didn't you?"

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head frantically. "I didn't, I swear."

"Then how did Lady Mary and Lady Edith find out?"

"Lady Sybil left a note on the mantle in her room. She figured someone'd unlock her door eventually, and she didn't want His Lordship to have a fit over it when he found out."

"Did he?"

"Hm?"

"Did he find out?"

She shook her head, her attention flitting to the floor, then to the small wooden hutch, where a clock rested, propping up a couple of worn books. "I don't think so, no," she said. "When he does, you'll pro'ly be dismissed."

"Then don't let him find out, not until Sybil and I announce it more formally."

"Lady Sybil."

"Excuse me?"

"You called her Sybil," Mairead observed. "Her proper address is Lady Sybil."

"She's Sybil to me," he replied. "You don't call my mother Mrs. Branson, do you?"

She shook her head. "No, but Aunt Susan is family, Tom. Quite different from our employer's daughter. Very different."

"She'll be family soon enough."

Mairead's jaw loosened, her lips curving into a surprised "o" shape. "You're joking. After what happened last night? Tom, His Lordship'll have you arrested."

"For what? Loving his daughter?" He pressed his lips together. "She's my Isibéal, Mairead, I wish you would just see that."

"It doesn't matter. Isibéal and Sam" - her voice wavered, and she paused to swallow- "Isibéal and Sam were different."

"They were two people who loved each other." He didn't make any move to comfort her, confident that she could hold herself together. "You remember everything that he did for her, don't you? I'd do the same for Sybil, don't doubt that."

"I don't." Her eyes shone brightly with the beginnings of tears, and she flicked away the tears before they could spill.

"Then why are you questioning me on this? You never questioned Sam, did you?"

Her eyes flashed. "How dare you bring Sam into this?" she demanded, her voice raised such that Tom was forced to wonder if Mrs. Hughes or any of the other staff had heard her.

"Because you claim you want to see the world change, but you don't do anything to change it. Sam did."

"And he paid for it." Her voice dropped back to its usual quiet politeness, but Tom could hear the sharp venom pooling beneath the surface. "So will you, if y'aren't careful."

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ease the dull headache he felt coming on. "You should be getting back to your work," he said, turning away from him. "We've both got long days ahead of us, and it wouldn't be good to have Mrs. Hughes think you don't do your work."

Mairead's hands curled into fists at her sides, but she gave him a tight nod. "You're right," she said stiffly. "I hope you know what you're doing, Tom, I really do."

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading~**

**I know that was a bit of a long chapter, with a hell lot of dialogue and not much else, which I know can get on some people's nerves. I don't do it intentionally, I swear. It's just how the scene presents itself to me. **

**And that's how you can help.**

**Please review, let me know what worked and what didn't, what you want more of, etc. I'd love to hear, and your opinions are highly valued in this process~**

**Thank you~**


	13. Wisdom and Rumor

**A/N: Here is the much-anticipated, lucky chapter thirteen!  
><strong>

**I don't think I have any important notes for this chapter, other than that I take some liberties with Jane Moorsum's character, because she's not as bad as some other housemaids who've had affairs under Downton's roof.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey, _and I'm doing a little playing with the timeline, just so that's there. **

**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>What a bloody idiot, <em>Mairead thought as she hurried to join Mrs. Moorsum upstairs, her footfalls resonating in the stairwell as she made her way to the drawing room. She knew she'd forget her frustration the second she had something else to occupy herself with, besides playing her last encounter with Tom over and over in her head, which was likely to drive her mad if she thought about it much longer.

If Tom announced his and Sybil's relationship (Mairead refused to think of it as an engagement, a term that implied it was public knowledge, which it most certainly wasn't) to His Lordship and the rest of the Crawleys, Tom would almost certainly be dismissed, and Lady Sybil would be powerless to object. In all likelihood, it would be one of those things that was written off as a member of the staff seducing a member of the family, even if it was the other way around or none of those things altogether. The family would need someone to blame for the "corruption" of one of their own, and who better to blame than the chauffeur whose arrival made itself known in the opinions of the youngest Crawley sister?

It was all too perfect a setup, and Mairead knew Mr. Carson wouldn't comment on His Lordship's decision if it came to Tom's dismissal. She doubted the butler would even have any issue with ridding himself of Tom, regardless of the fact that Downton would be without a chauffeur until Mr. Carson could find a suitable replacement. Mr. Carson wanted Tom gone for reasons of his own, though why he cared about Tom's interest in politics was beyond Mairead- it wasn't as if it was disrupting things downstairs anymore than Thomas or Mr. Lang had (though Mr. Lang, Mairead would admit, had been a different story altogether).

"Mairead, are you alright?"

The young woman glanced up from the cabinet she'd been polishing to meet Mrs. Moorsum's blue eyes. "Yes, Mrs. Moorsum," she answered quickly before returning to her polishing.

"Are you sure?" The older woman watched Mairead work with the careful attention that Mairead knew belonged to a mother, even if her own mother had never shown that towards her. "You've been polishing that cabinet for at least five minutes now; it's a miracle you haven't worn the finish away. Is something bothering you?"

_Yes, something is, _Mairead thought, her cheeks flushing an angry red as she realized the truth in Mrs. Moorsum's statement. She had been at this for longer than necessary, hadn't she? _My cousin might lose his job- strike that, he _is _going to lose his job- and in turn, I am going to lose him. Oh, and he also tried to use my brother as a justification as to why I shouldn't question him in his choices, when I have every right to do so. _

Instead of voicing her thoughts, Mairead only shook her head. "Nothing's bothering me, Mrs. Moors-"

"Jane," the other housemaid corrected. "I know I'm a married woman, not to mention older than you by quite a bit, Mairead, but here we're equals, understand?"

"Yes...Jane." Mairead stopped running the polishing rag over the wood, lest she actually wear away the finish as Mrs. Moorsum predicted she might. "I'm sorry for coming up late like I did," she added, realizing that she'd neglected to apologize as soon as she'd joined her colleague in the drawing room.

"Don't worry about it. No doubt what Mr. Branson had to tell you was rather important, or else he could've waited until luncheon."

"That's what I told him, but no, it' couldn't wait 'til then, he said." She forced herself to move on to arranging the cushions on the settee, if only so that her hands had something to do.

"I'm sure he's glad to have told you, though, whatever it was," Mrs. Moorsum said, dusting the mantle with a rag of her own. "I won't ask what it was- that's between you and him."

_Thank you. _

"- I just hope that it's not what has you upset."

Mairead didn't bother to insist that she was alright (even if she very well wasn't), but instead she only gave the older woman a tight nod. "I'm just afraid he's going to do something foolish," she admitted, rearranging the cushions until that part of her brain what commented on the uneven distribution was satisfied.

Mrs. Moorsum stopped her dusting and turned her attention to Mairead, placing a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. "I won't admit that I'm fond of Mr. Branson-"

_Few people here are. No one is, in fact, just me, Lady Sybil, and Anna, though she doesn't count because she likes everyone. _

"- but I think he's a good man, when it comes down to it. Few are willing to stand behind beliefs like his, and I have no doubt that he knows what he's doing and is willing to take responsibility for whatever may result from that."

"Thank you," Mairead said, somewhat warmed by the older woman's words. "I just hope he knows _what_ he's doing."

"I'm sure he does. You shouldn't doubt him like that, it'll only make things worse between you."

A smile curled at the corners of Mairead's lips. "You're right, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am, after all, what would thirteen years of married life teach me besides not to doubt my partner?"

"Mr. Branson and I aren't...I'm not…We're not..." She felt her cheeks turn a violent shade of red as she tried to defend herself against what she could only have assumed would be Mrs. Moorsum's assumption.

"That's not what I meant, though are you two, you kno-"

"We have work to do," she managed to say, hoping to divert the topic away from her and Tom, who weren't sweethearts, no matter how hard Nellie and Mrs. Moorsum and Daisy wished. Mr. Carson would probably wish it too, if it kept Tom out of trouble. Hell, the entire staff would plan and execute the wedding if they got the chance. It was, if anything, a problem, a threat to Mairead's reputation downstairs, and the only solution seemed to be to let Tom announce his engagement to Sybil and leave Downton, perhaps forever.

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><p><strong>AN: So that's the end of Chapter Thirteen, also known as "The Chapter in Which We Decide That Mairead Needs to Make Some Actual Friends Before Tom Leaves Because Jane is Going to Leave Soon Too."**

**That was long, and yes, it was completely necessary.  
><strong>

**It's just, Mairead needs to be a bit more social, and not hate on Anna so much, because what did Anna ever do to her (hint: nothing)**

**As usual, thank you for your support and I hope you enjoyed this puesdo-filler chapter~ **

**Reviews are welcome and they make my world go round. **

**Thank you**


	14. An Offer

**A/N: So here's the much-anticipated chapter fourteen! **

**So...um...I don't think there's any timeline things to note, other than Tom is gone by this point, married to Sybil and all that. So this is the beginning of Mairead's life getting interesting, I guess. **

**Disclaimer: Don't own _Downton Abbey_, but you knew that already, I bet. **

**Enjoy~**

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><p><em>April 1919<em>

Thomas waited until the rest of the staff cleared away and headed to their usual evening haunts before entering the servants' hall, where Jane was teaching Mairead a new stitch for repairing lace. He watched as the two maids worked side-by-side, Jane completing stitch after stitch without slowing her pace, while Mairead's lips were pressed tight as she practiced with the sleeve of a housemaid's black uniform dress, her needle stopping and starting like a faulty engine.

Neither woman seemed to notice the valet, and he made no effort to make his presence known, at least not yet. His goal didn't depend on whether or not he was noticed, as long as he was clever enough to play every advantage he had, should the need arise. Jane gave him a wide enough berth that he could easily get her to leave him be, and he trusted that Mairead would play her part well enough for him to beat her to the upper hand.

Jane noticed Thomas first, and he watched as she set aside her sewing and rose from the long table, making some whispered excuse to Mairead before making her way towards the kitchen. As the woman swept past Thomas, she fixed him with a warning glare, her usually soft eyes glinting like bluish steel in the electric light of the hall.

He rewarded her attempt at a challenge with enough attention to see her disappear down the hall and out of sight. _One less thing to worry about, _he thought as he turned his attention to Mairead, who was still practicing the stitch Jane had been showing her.

"It seems like you'd know how to do that already," he commented, leaving his post at the open threshold in favor of keeping this as private as possible. It wasn't ideal, the possibility that someone could walk in on them any second, but Thomas had waited long enough.

"Well then I'm glad Mrs. Moorsum offered to show me," she replied without so much as looking up from her work.

"Lucky, too, I'd imagine." He stood against the plaster wall, watching the housemaid for a reaction of some kind, anything to show him that he might be able to strike up some sort of alliance with her in the event that Mrs. O'Brien turned on him in favor of her nephew.

"Sorry?"

"I said it's lucky that you're learning now, before you get promoted to lady's maid and you have to mend Lady Edith's clothes. I imagine it'd be difficult to explain you never learned to fix lace."

"I don't think I'll ever be a lady's maid."

Thomas couldn't help but crack a smug grin. "Why not? I heard Mrs. Hughes mention how well you're coming along, helping Lady Sybil." That was a lie, of course, but he needed to test just how far her humility went, to see if it would be more worth his while to coerce her with promises of a higher position than what he had in mind. "I reckon she'd appoint you to Lady Mary instead of Anna, if you wanted."

The housemaid set down her work and finally acknowledged Thomas with hard, light brown eyes (if her eyes were blue, he would swear she was the chauffeur's sister) and a shake of her head. "I know it's a privilege t'ave that kind of opportunity, but if I'm to serve the Crawleys, I'd rather it be less direct."

His grin broadened by a hair.

She was giving him everything he wanted, and he liked what he was seeing, that was certain. She was one of those few who had ambition, but kept a tight lid on it, didn't let it become too obvious, and she didn't have any set loyalties (except to the chauffeur, but if the quarrel Thomas had heard coming from Mrs. Hughes's sitting room earlier was any indication, that loyalty would be shaky at best for a while) nor did she have any enemies. Her neutrality was the greatest advantage she would afford to him in a partnership like the one he and O'Brien once had.

Unfortunately, it seemed she would need a little…convincing, but Thomas was confident in his ability to bring her around. All it took were the right words, and never any unnecessary remarks. She seemed like the kind of person who wanted to cut straight to the chase, but knew better than to say so, and so Thomas would willingly oblige. All it would take were the right words and he'd have her, he knew it.

He came to sit across from her at the table, reaching into the breast pocket of his livery to retrieve a cigarette and a book of matches. "Is it because of what happened in Manchester?"

Color drained from Mairead's face, and Thomas saw the muscles of her jaw tighten as her eyes softened from steel to stone

"Nothing happened in Manchester," she said, her eyes dropping to her work, though her hands didn't move to complete it. "I don't know who told you anything, but nothing happened."

He lit the cigarette, but he didn't bring it to his lips quite yet. "A certain Elliot Grant would say differently," he told her, naming the footman from the Downing household who'd been treated at Downton during the war.

"What'd he say?"

"Only that you and your employer's son were-"

"He was lying. He didn't know anything, I swear. Nothing happened for him to know about in the first place." She shook her head and gripped the edge of the table. "Whatever he told you was nonsense."

He took a drag of the cigarette. "Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson wouldn't think so if they didn't know better." He exhaled, sending a loose cloud of smoke tumbling towards her.

She flinched away from the smoke, her nose wrinkling at the smell of tobacco. "Why would you tell them?"

"So I'm right? Something did happen? A soured affair with your employer's son was what it sounded like."

"Keep it down!" she hissed, her eyes flickering to the entryway.

"What've you got to keep me quiet?" he challenged, thrilled by her response. It was almost too easy, how she'd responded so well to his ploy. Even better that she couldn't be sure if he was bluffing or not. "All I have to do is make sure it reaches the right people-"

"You wouldn't dare."

"You might be surprised what I would and wouldn't dare. Remember that I've worked here for longer than you, and I can easily put in a word to get you sacked," he said.

"What do y'want from me?" Mairead asked, the edge from earlier giving way to a measured, defeated tone. She raised her eyes to meet Thomas's, reminding the valet of the one time he'd seen a mouse cornered by a cat. The wretched creature had given up hope, clearly outmatched by the tomcat that'd chased it to exhaustion, yet it kept staring bravely in the face of its demise.

"Oh nothing," he said with a grin. "Just to let you know you aren't as good at keeping your own secrets as you think. Hopefully you won't force my hand, because all it would take is one-"

"What. Do. You. Want."

There it was again, the edge in her voice, the valiant (yet hopelessly ineffective) attempts at discouraging him. It did anything but that; if anything, her determination urged Thomas onward, to see just how far he could push.

"I'll make you an offer, _Mairead,_" he said, letting her name fall into the space between them, hanging in the air with the smoke and dust that inevitably accumulated in the hall. Dust always accumulated in Downton, never seemed to stop, it seemed, but Thomas had learned to stop paying it any mind.

"You're making a threat, not an offer." she said bluntly, folding her arms across her chest and leaning forward on the table.

_Clever girl. _"Suppose I am," he said. "If that's how you'd like to think about it, be my guest."

She rolled her eyes. "Get on with it."

_Snappish, but not as vicious as O'Brien, and not as easily cowed as Baxter; I think I can live with that. _

"Be my eyes and ears upstairs and down, and your little scandal won't leave this room."

"If I refuse?"

He shrugged and let the cigarette rest on his lips, contemplating taking another drag before he decided against it and lowered his hand. "I might just slip up during a card game one night and you might find yourself packing your bags back to your industrialist lover."

"Will y'at least give me time to consider?"

_Because you've impressed me, sure. _"I'll give you a fortnight," he told her. "Deal?"

She nodded slowly, her shoulders rounding in and once more calling to mind the image of the mouse, this time before the cat snatched it up in its mouth. "Deal."

"I hope you'll make a good choice."

She only stared at him, her eyes filled with a dull flicker of resignation and her hands curled tightly in her lap. She would say yes, Thomas knew she would, but he also knew he had to hear it from her first, hear her admit defeat and agree to be his ally, otherwise it wouldn't be fair.

"Goodnight Ms. Hayes, you know where to find me if you make up your mind."

Mairead didn't say a word, and that was how he left her.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this bit. Things are getting moving, aren't they?**

**I wanted to bring up Baxter just because I could, if you were wondering about that. **

**As per usual, reviews mean the world, for this chapter especially so far, because Thomas is HARD to write, especially in this light. It's a good kind of hard though, like I had to stretch for it...Anyways, thank you for your support!**


	15. Hurt But Not Heartbroken

**A/N: Here's the next chapter! **

**Not much to say here, except I think I'm gonna give Anna some time.**

**Disclaimer: Same as always. I don't own _Downton_**

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><p>"You just missed him," Anna told Mairead as she settled at her usual spot at the servants' table, right between the head housemaid and Jane.<p>

"Just missed who?" The corners of Mairead's lips turned downward and a small fold appeared between her drawn brows.

"Mr. Branson," the head housemaid clarified. "He left around luncheon with Lady Sybil. His Lordship gave them his blessing to get married, it seems." Anna wasn't sure what she expected; she'd seen how close Mairead and the former chauffeur seemed to be, which perhaps was why she didn't anticipate Mairead's simple "oh," and then silence.

"He said to tell you goodbye."

Mairead only nodded slowly, her eyes fixed on the whorls that riddled the table under her empty plate. "Anything else?"

"He didn't tell me anything else, no."

"Did he say where he was going? Leave a forwarding address? Anything?"

Anna shook her head. "I'm afraid he didn't, though Carson might have a forwarding address. You could ask him," she suggested.

"It's no use," Mairead muttered, shaking her head and blinking quickly, as if to dispel tears. If the girl was actually crying or about to cry, Anna couldn't tell from looking, though she heard Mairead's lilting voice break.

"Why do you say that?" Anna was reluctant to pry, but she knew part of her duty as head housemaid was to look after the well-being of the younger maids. "I'm sure you could get his address from Mr. Carson if you want to write."

"I'm sure he'd love to hear from you," Jane suggested, her voice gentle as she tucked a dark red curl behind Mairead's ear and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. "You should write."

Mairead turned away from Jane's touch, her hand flying to pull the curl back over her ear before going to smooth the sleeve of her uniform. "He won't write back, not with a new job and a wife; he'll be too busy."

"So it's jealousy then?" Mrs. O'Brien asked, her brows arched and her lips pressed together.

An angry blush crept up Mairead's neck to her cheeks, and her ears turned a little pink as well. "No," she snapped, her jaw tightening.

"Why'd she be jealous of Lady Sybil? Mr. Branson isn't exactly what you'd call a catch," Thomas said, looking up from the letters that'd come for him in the afternoon post and offering a bemused smile to the three housemaids.

Under the valet's gaze, Mairead froze, her irritation shifting to fear for but a second before her light brown eyes shone like the cobblestones of the courtyard. "I never said I was jealous," she said, her voice carrying the same rumbling evenness that Mr. Bates's was at times.

"Thomas-"

"_Mr. Barrow, _Mrs. Bates."

Heat crept up Anna's cheeks, but she took a steadying breath, forcing herself to become calm. "Mr. Barrow," she said, her voice taking on an intensity of its own, "leave Mairead alone. If you were heartbroken, you'd want the same respect."

"If she's heartbroken, she better keep it to herself," Mrs. O'Brien said. "There's enough of that going around here as that is."

There was a rattle of wood and ceramics, followed by a dull thump as Mairead's knee got stuck under the table. An angry, whispered curse slipped from her mouth as she pulled her leg from under the table, clearly struggling to maintain an air of calm.

"Not so innocent, are we?" Thomas asked, casting her a sidelong glance as she left the table, heading for the hallway.

Mairead spun on her heel, and Anna's eyes went wide at the sight of the red cheeks and dangerously bright eyes that presented themselves on Mairead's face.

Never in her life had Anna seen anyone get this upset-not even Mr. Carson or Mrs. Hughes- nor had she ever seen it crossed with the fear that she could only assume Thomas's interjections were responsible for. The valet had done something to Mairead; that was the most likely explanation for her behavior towards him.

"I am not heartbroken," the young woman seethed. "I don't expect you to understand that, Mr. Barrow, but know that I am not jealous of Lady Sybil, nor do I have any feelings towards Mr. Branson. Not that would be your concern, anyways."

As Mairead left the servants' hall, her rage evident in each brisk step- Mairead never walked that quickly- Anna watched her retreat, her brows drawn together in concern.

"I'll go see if I can talk to her," Jane offered, standing as if to leave.

Anna shook her head. "Don't," she told the other woman. "Let her be alone for a while. She'll come around, I'm sure."

_And if she doesn't, I'll go talk with her after supper. _

Jane nodded. "If you think that's what's best."

"You let Mr. Branson go stew after the whole Strutt issue, and look how that ended up," O'Brien commented.

"You think Mairead'll run off with Mr. Matthew, then?" Anna asked, a slight smirk playing across her lips. She'd meant it as a jest, but it was clear that Thomas didn't think the same.

"I wouldn't put it past her."

All eyes turned to the valet.

"That's not very kind," Jane said.

"It don't have to be kind, Mrs. Moorsum," Thomas said. "Not when it's based on solid truth."

"That's it," Anna said flatly, standing and preparing to leave the table. "Tell Mr. Carson that Lady Mary needed me to do something for her urgently. I'll get something to eat later."

"Wouldn't you like to know what happened?"

"No, Thomas, I wouldn't. Not from you anyway."

"Have it your way then, just don't blame me when you hear the truth."

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Thank you so much for reading, and I can't wait to hear what y'all have to say.****So we might get to hear about Manchester and the Downings next chapter (read: much sooner than I anticipated)...**

**Also, to answer the earlier question of "will there be a romantic arc for Mairead?": MAYBE. **

**I make no promises.**

**And speaking of promises, an alternate title for this chapter is "In Which Thomas Cannot Be Trusted To Keep His Word Because He Likes To Freak People Out Sometimes."**

**Thank you~**


	16. Truth

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but end of term exams can be a bitch sometimes, not to mention this was a difficult chapter to write. **

**Alternate Chapter Title: In Which Mairead Decides That Maybe Telling the Truth is a Good Idea **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Zero. Zilch. Nada. **

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><p>Mairead left the servants' hall and went straight to the courtyard, not caring that it was cold enough for her to see the small clouds of moisture that curled away from her lips like smoke and that she didn't have her coat on.<p>

_There's worse things to be, _she thought as she found a stack of empty crates well out of sight of the back entrance where she could wait until Mr. Barrow's words didn't make her want to slap him (it wouldn't be very effective, but it was the best she could do without causing too much of a scene). _Unemployed is one of them._

The mere thought of losing her job at Downton caused dread to well in her chest. Losing her job here would mean having to go for God-knows-how-long without a job (that is, a respectable job), because there was no way she'd go back into the Downings' employ unless she was at her wit's end. She needed this job to help support Isibéal and her brother's children, just like she'd promised herself she would almost three years ago today.

_Has it been three years already?_ she thought, closing her eyes against the wind as it tore around the courtyard like a wave filling grooves in the sand, washing away an insignificant layer of the seashore. It felt like it was only yesterday that the telegram from Aunt Bridget arrived saying that Sam had been shot on his way to visit the O'Donovans and his wife, but no, it'd been just shy of three years ago. _Time does fly when you're busy, I suppose. _

Another thought came to the front of her mind: it'd been eleven days since Mr. Barrow had threatened to divulge Mairead's secret unless she agreed to be his spy. She had three days- less if the impatience in his voice was any indication- to make a choice about whether or not it was worth the risk to decline his offer.

The right thing to do would be for her to tell Mrs. Hughes what the valet was trying to get away with, but would that really help? It wouldn't change the fact that Mr. Barrow had information that he could use against her (never mind that it wasn't true in the first place, because it hardly mattered at this point), nor did it change the fact that he would use it against her. It was bad enough that he knew, or at least, that he thought he knew. He didn't know anything close to the truth, from what Mairead had heard him say, and she wondered if that was how she wanted it to stay.

"Mairead?"

Mairead's back straightened to attention at the sound of the head housemaid's voice, and she hurried to wipe away whatever tears had begun to pool in the corner of her eyes. She didn't dare to answer, even though she'd concluded long ago ("long ago" meaning roughly six months ago, so maybe not _that_ long ago) that Anna wasn't anyone to be suspicious of, and Mairead especially softened towards her because of how kind she'd been to Tom after his return from Gretna Green. There weren't many people like Anna in the world, and definitely not at Downton, and Mairead supposed it was something to be thankful for.

"There you are," the head housemaid said, coming to sit beside Mairead. "Are you alright? I don't know what's happening between you and Mr. Barrow, but if you ever need a friend-"

"I'm fine, I promise," Mairead interrupted, tilting her face away from Anna's curious blue eyes. "I just miss Tom- I mean Mr. Branson."

"It's alright," Anna said, covering up a soft laugh. "You two were very close, and I'd imagine you found it hard to call him Mr. Branson most of the time."

_Not when you've been calling your mam "Mrs. Hayes" for four years. _

"He's my cousin," Mairead blurted out, her voice reaching just above a whisper. There was no use hiding it anymore, not with Tom gone, and if she could trust anyone down here with that, it was Anna.

But why did she need to trust someone with it? It wasn't anything scandalous, like the information Mr. Barrow threatened to spill about Manchester, which would get her sacked, no questions asked. But Tom? What harm would being related to him do? If anything, it would stop the rumors that she was in love with him, and that would be a welcome relief, she supposed, and Mrs. Hughes couldn't dismiss her for being related to someone with opinions contrary to the majority.

"Excuse me?"

Mairead turned to face Anna, trying to become more comfortable with saying it out loud herself. "Mr. Branson's my cousin," she said again, her voice more steady this time. "I'm sorry I lied 'bout it for as long as I did, I really am, an' I don't know why I did, exactly. Thought it'd save me trouble." _Dear Lord, you sound like you did at your first confession. _

Anna put an arm around the younger woman's shoulder, as a mother or older sibling might to comfort a child. "I had a feeling there was more to that story," she told Mairead matter-of-factly, watching her with a careful attention that was somewhat foreign to the younger housemaid. "Are you going to tell the others?"

"I just told Lucy and Ethel and Alice, and they're all gone now, aren't they? I don't think anyone else would care much, even if I did." _Yet you lied anyways. _

"I see. And what was Mr. Barrow talking about with you and Mr. Matthew?"

"Well I don't fancy either of them, if that's what you're thinking," Mairead snapped, her hackles rising at the mention of the valet. "Whatever he says 'bout me isn't true anyways." _Because you've basically lied and kept to yourself for three years. If anything, they'll be able to make up what they want because there isn't any truth to you, is there now? _

"You're a wonderful young woman, Mairead, and I don't doubt you're telling the truth there. I know it's not my place, but I think it'd do you a great deal of good if you had someone you could talk to, even if you prefer to be on your own."

Mairead nodded. "Thank you Anna," she said, feeling the subtle weight of her deception lift, just like the vicar in at the village church said it did when you admitted to a lie or other sin. "I'm sorry I-"

Now it was Anna's turn to cut her off. "Don't be sorry. It's not much, but I forgive you, and remember, it could always be worse."

"I know."

"Sure you do." The head housemaid took Mairead's hands in hers and lept off the crate, pulling Mairead with her. "Now let's get inside, shall we? You'll freeze out here, and I'm sure Mr. Branson wouldn't want you to catch something."

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><p><strong>AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and thank you for reading! As usual, please review (because I fear I might've gone a bit OOC with both Mairead and Anna at times). **

**Happy (late) Thanksgiving if you celebrate it, and if not, well...just happy Another Day of Living! **

**Thank you**


	17. An Answer

**A/N: I know it's been a while, but I do try very hard to have a life outside of my fan fiction (often reluctantly), and this chapter was hard to write...trust me. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Downton Abbey, _or else Mairead would be on the show, I can promise you that. **

"Time's up."

"Well that's good isn't it, because I have an answer."

A dark brow arched upwards and his smirk became a bit more apparent- exaggerated, almost, as if she were a creature of lower intelligence, such as a mouse (how was it he always thought of her as being a mouse?). "Do you now?"

"I'll do it." The boldness in her voice was forced, the same way his had been before he'd left for the front.

"Glad to see you have some sense to you. I look forward to working with you then."

"Likewise, I suppose." Her dark eyes betrayed what she was thinking, that she was a mouse in the jaws of a cat.

_Only you put yourself there, remember that,_ he thought. _Don't squirm too much and you'll be fine. I don't plan on letting go for quite some time._

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading! I know this was very short and vague, but it works, I hope. The next chapter will be longer (much longer) starring Sybil and Branson and Mrs. Branson, so we get some S/T, I promise. **

**As usual, please read and review and thank you for your support!**


	18. The Wedding Pt 1

**A/N: As promised, a longer chapter! **

**I want to take the time to thank you all for supporting this fanfic, it means the world to me, it really does. I must confess to being very unsure about it all when I started, only because I've never seen any OCs in the Downton Abbey fandom as I have in other f****andoms (and because OCs are so hard to write well, even for someone such as myself, whose been writing them in some way/shape/form for my entire fan fiction career of 9+ years (we do not speak of anything written during the first seven years, that is the law)). Thank you all so much for following this ridiculously long story (it's nowhere near finished, we're hardly at the end of Season 2, much to my frustration) and enduring my attempts at being accurate in all fields y'all are the best and I love each and every one of you. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own _Downton Abbey_, though that would be ridiculously cool and awesome because, come on, it's _Downton freaking Abbey_. I also have no experience with the weather in just-outside-of-Dublin, Ireland in the early summer of 1919, nor do I have any experience with early summers in Europe in general, nor do I know what kind of birds inhabit Ireland at this time of year. This has been a PSA **

**Thank you and I hope you enjoy~**

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><p><em>June 1919<em>

It was her wedding day, and oh, what a lovely day it was!

Outside, the robins and wrens and whatever other birds frequented the eaves of Mrs. Branson's cottage reflected the frantic excitement of Sybil's heartbeat in their quick, warbling song as they flew about. Only a few clouds dotted the sky, which was bright with the sunshine of a summer come early, and a timid breeze nudged them along in stops and starts, determined to let the sunlight through.

"There y'are," Mrs. Branson said, sliding the last hairpin into place against the nape of Sybil's neck and stepping back ever-so-slightly so her future daughter-in-law could admire her handiwork.

"It's lovely, thank you," Sybil breathed, running her fingertips over the intricate plaits and coils that her hair had been transformed into, careful not to be too forceful, lest she ruin Mrs. Branson's hard work.

_I don't think Anna ever did my hair this way, _she thought, and then she stopped.

In the months since moving to Dublin with Tom (two months, to be exact, though technically not until next Friday), Sybil had experienced a whole world of things that were different from her life at Downton, and she knew her astonishment, which was often childlike (according to Tom, though she knew he meant it in the best of all possible ways). Her astonishment betrayed the ignorance that she had grown up in, surrounded- _protected_- by Downton's ancient walls; the same ignorance she disliked in others, she found in herself, and she wanted nothing more than to be rid of it.

"You're very kind, Lady Sy-"

"Sybil," she was quick to correct as her mother corrected the improper grammar of Sybil's early childhood, kindly, and with only a little force, and most certainly without the exasperation of a mother chastising her son for bringing toads in from the pond, despite being told not to. "Just Sybil. I'm marrying your son, Mrs. Branson, I think it's beyond appropriate that you call me by my name as it is, not to mention I'll no longer be "Lady." I'll be "Mrs. Branson." Mrs. Tom Branson."

"I can see why he likes you," the older woman remarked as she placed a cream-colored shawl around Sybil's shoulders (there were still a couple hours before the wedding, and Sybil was still in her nightdress, having seen no point in soiling a dress she was only going to wear for two hours at most). "You're a lucky one, y'are, and so's my Tom, t'have found a lass like you. You're what this family needs, y'know- something good."

_How does one respond to that? _

"How? From what my parents told me, the two of us are quite the shock, and not in the best of ways."

"And that y'are, but with the war over, we've got a lot of things that are "quite the shock," so what's one more? It just takes some gettin' used to, for us as much as you, and then someday we'll all be sitting 'round the hearth and you'll be as much a Branson as Tom an' Kieran are, and there'll be no one t'tell you y'arent one of us, understood?" In the mirror, Sybil saw Mrs. Branson raise an eyebrow, reminding her very much of Granny, but younger and less…high-and-mighty than the Dowager Countess ever was in Sybil's memory.

"That's my hope," came Sybil's bright reply. "I only hope my family would say the same. They're not what they seem to be, I swear to it, but Papa isn't one to let go of traditions, even to straighten his gloves."

"He has servants for that, I'd suspect," Mrs. Branson said, her eyes lighting up at her jest, which Sybil knew she made purely to be funny, and she agreed- it was amusing. "Pardon the jest, dear, I couldn't help m'self."

"Of course. You needn't apologize."

"I...We all hold on t'things- children, toys, spouses, God, mem'ries, traditions. It's human t'do that, I suppose, t'have an anchor of sorts. The war took a lot of those anchors from a lot of people, and you see what happened."

Sybil thought immediately of what her cousin Patrick's death had done to the family (more specifically her father, since Mary didn't seem bothered by it, at least not when Cousin Matthew showed up at their door), what the death of the young Lieutenant- the one Barrow had made good friends with, Courtenay, Sybil thought was his name- had done to her father's temporary valet, what the loss of William had done to all of Downton, and what the little hope of Mr. Bates's exoneration was doing to Anna every passing second.

"Yes I did," she answered, feeling all of a sudden rather solemn, as if the breezes had neglected to blow a cloud from in front of the sun, and had instead just left it sitting there. "I understand you...that Tom lost a cousin."

Mrs. Branson nodded solemnly. "Aye, he did," she said. "Though Sam didn't die in the war, not the one everyone thinks of, anyways. He was a sweet lad, he was. He, Kieran, and Tom would always play with his sister, or read her those Enlightenment thinkers. It's a shame she never became political, though perhaps it's a good thing."

"Why do you say that?" Sybil would never think that Mairead was unhappy at Downton, but if she really was as politically-minded as Mrs. Branson seemed to think she was, why didn't she take more action and assert that interest? It was her business, Sybil decided, not someone else's, and with what happened to Sam, perhaps it was for the better after all.

"She's too much like her mam, in bad ways as well as good," Mrs. Branson told Sybil. "She told me once when she was little that she knew what she wanted to do with 'er life, and that was be a housekeeper like Aileen, only she'd never marry."

"Housekeeper's don't usually marry, isn't that right?" At least that's what Mrs. Hughes had told her- somewhat sadly, Sybil recalled, as if that had been her plan at some point in the Scottish woman's life.

"But Aileen did, silly lass, thought she could have babes too, and she did- four of 'em. The problem with that was they never knew their mother. She had them, weaned them, and left them with her sister, not ten minutes south of here. Visited on Christmas if she could, though that was rare itself."

"What about her husband? Was he a butler?" Sybil thought of Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson, only married, which wasn't a strange thought for her. There was something between those two that made her think they wanted to be married, only there was something holding them back. An arrangement such as that would work, she supposed, if barely.

Mrs. Branson laughed and shook her head. "He worked in a fact'ry, died not long after Aileen had her youngest, Elizabeth."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Sybil said, her heart aching the slightest bit for Mairead. If what Mrs. Branson said was true (and Sybil had no doubt in the world that it was), Mairead had grown up without ever knowing her mother and surely not knowing her father, which was something Sybil couldn't even imagine. "It's no wonder she's so close with Tom, then."

"And a good thing, too. He did the right thing, helping bring her and her siblings up with Sam, and now she's gone and wasted her life in service just like her mam."

"I wouldn't say wasted. She's been a great help to me and Tom, and I doubt we'd be getting married today if it weren't for her help."

"Well you can tell her that when y'see her, though I doubt she'll be coming. Her mam isn't, neither is Will, her brother, so I wouldn't put it past her t'miss out either."

There was a soft knock at the door, which hung slightly ajar, creaking back and forth in the slight breezes. It was a sound Sybil recognized from her life at Downton, as well as the measured, lilting voice that followed.

"M'lady, may I come in?"

A knowing smile curled at the corner of Sybil's lips. "Come in!"

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><p><strong>AN: So that's the end of this chapter. I hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading! As usual, reviews are more than welcome, tell me what I'm doing wrong, what I'm doing right, what you think is going to happen next, etc. It all means very much to me, to know what you're thinking as you're reading. **

**There is going to be more wedding-fluff-drama in the coming chapters simply because I say so and because I need some Tom/Sybil love. There is a slight chance that a majority of the Branson clan will be at the wedding, plus the two Crawley sisters and a certain Mrs. Bates. **

**Thank you :) **


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